Washington’s Dependable Right-Hand Man
No single role embraced by Hamilton was either more important or timely than serving as Washington’s chief of staff, in the modern sense, although that title did not officially exist in the American army of the 1770s. While this is now one of the most crucial positions in the United States military establishment, in Hamilton’s day it was the first such position in the annals of the Continental Army. He set the bar high. Hamilton and his contributions transformed Washington’s staff into a truly professional organization, making it more efficient, stable, and productive to meet the demands of a lengthy war of attrition. Because Washington had been forced to rely upon friends, prominent families, and political connections for choosing staff officers, he had long lacked a take-charge officer like Hamilton who was so unlike other staff members: An outsider with broad views that were more nationalistic than regional and whose position was not based on lofty social and political standing. Paradoxically, this outsider from what was considered a foreign land evolved into the ultimate insider of Washington’s military “family” of promising officers. For his entire life, Hamilton had been looking for such an opportunity, because his role as Washington’s chief of staff provided perhaps the best example of how not only the Continental Army but also this little military “family” was a true meritocracy: the environment in which he could truly excel on his own ideas and abilties.
As mentioned, one of the greatest misconceptions about the American Revolution—America’s most mythical chapter—is that Washington operated alone in an isolated vacuum to orchestrate his army’s complex operations and campaigns from his headquarters. In this sense, Washington’s mythical and romantic image has cast a giant shadow, which has long obscured the importance of Hamilton’s vital role and his vital contributions as Washington’s right-hand man whose influence and role was far greater than long assumed. Clearly, Hamilton’s rise had been as dramatic as it had been meteoric for a relatively little-known man who was not only the youngest member of Washington’s staff, but also the most recent arrival to America’s shores.
Natural in the creation of a nation’s birth, the excessive glorification of Washington and his achievements in the annals of American history has long portrayed him as having practically won the revolutionary entirely on his own. Even one of America’s leading Revolutionary War historians whose work has been masterful over the years, Thomas Fleming, has been guilty of perpetuating this popular myth. He concluded incorrectly in his 1963 book Beat the Last Drum, The Siege of Yorktown 1781 how Washington “was always his own chief of staff.”1 But to be fair, Fleming is not to blame, because this misconception and popular assumption has existed since the American Revolution.
Because of his lofty “father of the country” status, this longtime assumption that Washington had no chief of staff has been routinely and widely accepted by generations of American historians. While this situation was more the case near the war’s beginning when Washington first took command of the army at Cambridge, it ended not long after Hamilton’s arrival at his Morristown headquarters on March 1, 1777. But what should be acknowledged is that Washington’s genius was fully recognizing Hamilton’s genius and to early delegate so many key responsibilities to the young man. During most of the revolutionary struggle, no one worked longer or made more significant contributions at the army’s vibrant nerve center than Washington’s most trusted confidant. As mentioned, Hamilton’s specialty was the ability to excel at the most sensitive and delicate missions that required the highest level of well-honed diplomatic, interpersonal, and political skills that he possessed in abundance.
Above all, the breadth of Hamilton’s skills were put to good use by Washington in solving some of his greatest problems, especially in crisis situations. Working behind the scenes in Washington’s shadow, Hamilton made disproportionate contributions from beginning to end. Having the uncanny ability to literally “possess the Soul of the General” which was necessary to decipher exactly what was most required by him and then pass it along to others, Hamilton was essentially Washington’s alter ego while holding “one of the highest offices in the land” as Washington’s chief of staff.2
The Incomparable Berthier of the Continental Army
By way of historical comparison, a brilliant chief of staff was also one of the secrets of Napoleon Bonaparte’s astonishing successes on battlefields across Europe. Like Washington, Napoleon possessed the genius for surrounding himself with the best talent and most brilliant minds. Napoleon’s campaigns unleashed massive armies that flowed smoothly with unprecedented precision and coordination over vast areas of Europe, especially in catching armies of opposing monarchs by surprise, thanks in part to the forgotten contributions of an expert staff, especially his invaluable chief of staff. The Napoleonic staff at all levels (army, division, and corps) was very large compared to American army staffs, which by contrast continued to remain small well into the nineteenth century, including on both sides during the Civil War. While the Napoleonic model for strategy and tactics was warmly embraced by American officers, especially during the Civil War, for generations, such was not the case in regard to the staff or the chief of staff role. All in all, this was an unfortunate development that long guaranteed that the American military was less professional and effective than its European counterparts across the continent.
No one (after Napoleon) was more responsible for Napoleon’s remarkable string of successes year after year than the incomparable performance of his brilliant chief of staff who was without a peer in the nineteenth century, Louis Alexandre Berthier. He first served in his important role in the Army of Italy during Napoleon’s Italian Campaign, where the young native Corsican, long-haired and slim in his early days, first made a name for himself as a gifted independent commander with brilliant tactical and strategic insight. Like Hamilton beginning in March 1777, Berthier, a former engineer of immense ability and son of an architect, made sure that Napoleon’s staff functioned smoothly during the French emperor’s most famous campaigns.3
Although Alexander the Great had benefitted by a general staff in his conquest of the Persian Empire in ancient times in marching his army beyond the limits of the known world and all the way to India, the modern roots of the General Staff and a Chief of Staff went back to the Prussian Army, when a group of chosen officers provided direct service to the King, the commander-in-chief. Then, in a development in regard to Washington that took place in the Continental Army after Hamilton’s arrival on the first day of March 1777, it “was natural that [the Prussian monarch] should need such a staff, and should come to rely on the Chief of his General Staff as his principal operational assistant.”4
However, Napoleon had been long recognized as the first commander to utilize a chief of staff on the modern sense, but this has been a misleading conclusion and simply not the case. In truth, it was Washington and not Napoleon who should rightly have this distinction. Leading the way and performing much like the incomparable Berthier, Hamilton served as the principal “driving force of the staff” and headquarters during most of Washington’s tenure (nearly four years) as commander-in-chief.5 In bestowing Hamilton with broad responsibilities and duties of extreme importance, Washington never regretted one of his best decisions of the war.6 From beginning to end, Hamilton gave wise strategic council not only to Washington, but also to his top lieutenants, including General Nathanael Greene.7 Therefore, whenever he faced a new dilemma and seemingly insurmountable problem (like the case of Berthier and Napoleon, who summonsed his chief of staff seventeen times one hectic night in 1809) the most commonly heard words year after year at Washington’s headquarters were “Call Colonel Hamilton!”8
Because so many other Continental officers fawned upon him in the never-ending game of self-serving politics and personal advancement, Washington fully appreciated that Hamilton spoke with honesty and candor about anything and everything (except about his dark family past), making him an ideal trustworthy military and political advisor to a still novice general who was still learning on the job and often failed to receive the truth from subordinates who seemingly always sought to curry favor. Washington knew that he could always get the straight story and unvarnished truth from Hamilton, who freely spoke his mind and from the heart. As the Virginian realized, this was an amazing young man who could be trusted and depended upon without question. It was also a characteristic that would earn the young lieutenant colonel many enemies, because he was Washington’s favorite which was the most coveted of positions. General Washington early realized that Hamilton, despite his ambition that he held in check to serve as the chief of staff, was not one who sought to win favor by saying what he thought the commander-in-chief wanted to hear like so many others.
Despite his increasing success as chief of staff that almost seemed impossible for someone in his early twenties to achieve, Hamilton still desired to win distinction by his own achievements on the field of strife. This passion continued to consume him, but his strong will kept it in check. Hamilton, therefore, remained focused solely on his daunting tasks at headquarters. Although he was outspoken on almost every subject, Hamilton was no flatterer—except toward attractive women—even when often surrounded by some of America’s most revered men, who expected a respectful silence from one so young. . When he saw failings of policies or individuals at the highest levels, Hamilton freely spoke his mind, offering solutions to the most vexing governmental, military, and economic problems of a sensitive nature. This was a rare quality that had earlier seen the self-assured teenager even correctly criticizing his superior’s questionable judgment and business decisions when he had successfully managed the firm’s St. Croix business operations in Cruger’s absence.9
Keen Strategic Insights
Besides possessing prophetic military insights and understanding tactical aspects of waging war, Hamilton also developed a keen strategic mind that was first revealed when he had boldly predicted that England could never win this war even before the conflict began at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. From gathering intelligence about his opponent, Hamilton’s astute strategic sense and insights about General William Howe’s intentions were revealed in his March 10, 1777, letter to General Alexander McDougall, the New York City radical and leader of the Sons of Liberty who had early fueled Hamilton’s revolutionary zeal before the war, only days after he joined Washington’s staff at Morristown: “It is greatly to be lamented that the present state of things does not admit of having the requisite number of troops at every post; on the contrary the most important, are deficient … but those posts must suffer which, from their situation ought only to be of a secondary attention. We have, I think, the most decisive evidence that the enemy’s operations will be directed on this quarter; to this end they are drawing all their forces into the Jerseys, and as soon as the weather will permit ’tis expected they will move towards Philadelphia. Not being very numerous ’tis unlikely they should attempt such an object, without collecting their whole force; and for that reason ’tis not much to be appreciated they should make any stroke of the kind you mention.”10 As Hamilton’s prophetic letter revealed, it is hard to imagine that such a keen strategic analysis was written by a mere youth, who was new to Washington’s headquarters.
Because he advised Washington on some of the day’s most complex and pressing matters, Hamilton also continued to pay close attention to political developments. Hamilton remained in the loop of politics at the highest levels during the winter and spring of 1777. From the Morristown encampment on May 19, 1777, he penned one penetrating letter to Gouverneur Morris, a respected delegate to New York’s constitutional convention, in regard to the new state constitution of New York: “That there is a want of vigor in the executive, I believe will be found true…. On the whole … I think your Government far the best that we have yet seen, and capable of giving long and substantial happiness to the people.”11
But Hamilton’s insights were as astute in military as in political matters, especially on the eve of the new campaign. Waiting for the enemy’s next move to initiate the 1777 spring campaign, Hamilton busily wrote a series of letters containing Washington’s directives to his top lieutenants. On June 4, 1777, Hamilton wrote to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, at Middlebrook, New Jersey, to be ready for movement when ordered: “As the enemy appear from different Quarters to be in motion it is necessary that the army be in readiness to march [and] it is therefore ordered that the tents be immediately struck—the baggage and camp equipage loaded … and all the men [should be] ready to march at a moment’s warning.”12
During the early summer of 1777, Hamilton offered other strategic insights to Morris. Knowing that the army’s survival was the primary strategic goal in a war of attrition against a superior opponent, he advised how the “liberties of America are an infinite stake…. We should not play a desperate game for it, or put it upon the issue of a single cast of the die. The loss of one general engagement may effectively ruin us, and it would certainly be folly to hazard it.”13
A diehard nationalist who fully understood the potential of this new people’s republic and America’s promise, Hamilton’s belief in the struggle for liberty never wavered, even when his spirits sank because of the loss of the revolutionary faith among many Americans, especially with so many Loyalists providing opposition. Hamilton reminded one general with the same ease with which he communicated with state governors, in order to emphasize what he considered to be the proper patriotic duty. America’s revolutionaries struggled mightily against the odds because “our all is at stake [because] It is not a common contest we are engaged in.”14
By July 1777, Hamilton finally found some time for long-neglected personal correspondence, including a letter to his old spiritual mentor from his St. Croix days, Reverend Hugh Knox. On July 1, he even described his entry into Washington’s “family” with a sense of satisfaction to the good reverend who had been a key player in organizing the support behind Hamilton’s journey to America and start of a new life, writing: “I found General Washington at Morris Town, and have been with him ever since.”15
Hamilton also described the overall strategic situation to Reverend Knox. He revealed a solid understanding of the value of asymmetrical (guerrilla) warfare that mirrored his astute strategic and tactical insights first expressed as a King’s College student: “There have been a number of trifling skirmishes [but] they served to harrass [sic], and waste away the enemy, and teach our men to look them in the face with confidence.”16 Hamilton’s July 1, 1777, letter indicated that he had gained recent intelligence about his opponent just before the campaign’s beginning. By this time, Washington and Hamilton embarked upon measures to prepare the army at Morristown for a movement to meet Howe’s next maneuver. But even more revealing, Hamilton presented his insightful strategic view that was the secret to success: “Our own army is continually growing stronger in men and discipline…. We can maintain our present number … while the enemy must dwindle away; and at the end of the summer [of 1777] the disparity between us will be infinitely great, and facilitate any exertions that may be made to settle the business with them…. Our business then is to avoid a General engagement and waste the enemy away by constantly goading their sides, in a desultory way.”17
A Professional Intelligence Network
Benefitting Washington in additional ways, Hamilton’s abilities spilled over into other important areas, especially intelligence work, which long has been the most forgotten side of the American Revolution, because of its secrecy and the lack of primary documentation. With Hamilton now available at headquarters, Washington now had the right time and person to focus on creating an intelligence service. Washington had made his initial efforts to establish a spy network in February 1777 only a short time before the bright-eyed native West Indian arrived at headquarters.
Hamilton’s arrival was most timely, because his personal New York City connections were invaluable in recruiting covert agents in the city, which now served as the center of British power in America. Of course, Hamilton knew the city and inhabitants far better than Washington, who specifically requested that Hamilton utilize the most capable and patriotic New Yorkers for covert activities. Therefore, he went to work in setting up a wide-reaching intelligence organization to get the edge on his more experienced opponent in the information war. Tapping into his New York City network, Hamilton began to recruit civilians, such as his old friend Hercules Mulligan and his brother, as well as the Culper Ring of covert agents, who provided a flow of information to Hamilton. Such intelligence allowed Hamilton early on to ascertain that the British were planning a mighty offensive effort in the spring targeting Philadelphia, America’s capital.
Blessed with an analytic mind ideally suited for espionage, Hamilton developed acute detective-like instincts and skills that were tailor-made for the intelligence field, where he excelled. While Washington was not his own chief of staff as long assumed by traditional historians, he was more of his own chief of intelligence with Hamilton second-in-charge. But in time, Hamilton began to take over more of the burden during the ongoing intelligence war that was as crucial as battlefield showdowns. Relying upon his intelligence-gathering skills that had been first learned as a young officer in the French and Indian War, an experienced Washington had evolved into a master at the complicated covert game. Once again, Washington and Hamilton made an ideal team in working closely together. Hamilton often dealt with the most intimate details of spy operations, including even deciphering reports and letters from spies that were written in invisible ink. Despite his youth, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton had no illusions about either the importance of or the serious nature of covert activities. Hamilton had received the British Captain John Montresor who was carrying a flag of truce and information about the lethality of this covert game. He first brought the news that Washington’s spy Nathan Hale had been hanged in New York City before a crowd of gawking onlookers, including Montresor, who reported Hale’s heroism in the face of death to Hamilton, on September 22, 1776.
With Washington managing a vast intelligence network with Hamilton, one historian concluded: “Washington particularly liked having his fearless young cavalrymen as intelligence officers [that] included Captain [Allen] McLane, Benjamin Tallmadge [the promising Long Island-born son of clergymen on both sides of the family, a Yale classmate of Nathan Hale, and former Continental light dragoon officer, who was destined to be appointed the head of Washington’s intelligence network outside of headquarters in the summer of 1778], and Henry Lee. His aides Robert Hanson Harrison, John Laurens, and Alexander Hamilton, also became adept in the work.”18
But as so often is the case in regard to the native West Indian’s hidden contributions, this historian’s words devalued Hamilton as Washington’s top intelligence officer: resulting in part from the lack of information about these secret activities and Hamilton’s desire not to take credit for his own achievements, including in the secretive intelligence field, while in part to maintain Washington’s lofty symbolic image that was necessary for a successful resistance effort. In truth, Hamilton “handled much of the general’s intelligence work,” and far more than has been generally recognized by historians: another forgotten success story by the chief of staff. Ironically, one of the intelligence reports—dated March 10, 1777—read by Hamilton at headquarters, had been sent from another young, ambitious officer, Aaron Burr. Hamilton had almost certainly first met Burr in the summer of 1773, when he arrived fresh from St. Croix.19
Other intelligence reports destined to reach headquarters in the days ahead were forthcoming from Hamilton’s old friend, the Irishman Hercules Mulligan, who operated as a subagent of the Culper Ring. He possessed a perfect cover as Hamilton fully realized, having married Elizabeth Sanders, the daughter of a British admiral. In his mid-thirties, Mulligan was energetic, resourceful, and intelligent: an ideal secret agent. Mulligan gathered intelligence while operating his popular tailor shop at 23 Queen Street (now 218 Pearl Street), which catered to the elite. Here, Loyalists and British officers freely spoke their minds, bragging about their upcoming military exploits, and revealing military secrets. Mulligan’s brother Hugh, Jr., likewise gathered intelligence that was read by Hamilton with great interest.
But Hamilton’s old friend Hercules from their Sons of Liberty days provided the lion’s share of the intelligence that was delivered to Hamilton in person by his trusty slave Cato. Most importantly, because of Hamilton’s past association with the Mulligan boys, their intelligence was guaranteed to be authentic, which came as a great comfort to Washington, because so few people in New York City could be trusted.20
Continuing to perform as a well-honed, dynamic team, Washington and Hamilton concocted a clever scheme to not only catch a British spy, but also to present a false impression (misinformation) to mask the army’s paltry numbers at the Morristown winter encampment. All of this was calculated to fool the wily General Sir William Howe, the overall commander of British forces in North America. A wealthy philanthropist, attorney, and New York merchant who had relocated to Morristown to escape Loyalist persecution, Elias Boudinot had also served with Hamilton in the prisoner exchange negotiations. Destined to become the future president of the Continental Congress and an invaluable connection, he was Hamilton’s friend and associate from a time of greater innocence, before the war.
Washington and Hamilton relied upon Boudinot “to coordinate intelligence activities” to a degree. He was a Presbyterian whose parents had migrated to America from the West Indies, and one of the first members of the American Bible Society. Like Hamilton, Boudinot believed that God had blessed America’s cause. While spending a year in New Jersey, as a college student at the Elizabethtown Academy, and thanks to Reverend Hugh Knox’s and Nicholas Cruger’s efforts, Hamilton had stayed in the Boudinot home, known as the “Great House,” distinguished by its elegance and mansard roof.
After departing for King’s College and deeply affected by the death of Boudinot’s pretty daughter Maria, who he had long fawned over in a familial setting, Hamilton could only express his deep feelings in writing. He had written a heartfelt poem on September 4, 1774. Still philosophical even when overwhelmed by his own emotions, he gently implored the grieving family to “weep Maria’s fate no more; She’s safe from all the storms of life.” Washington’s “Little Lion,” whose heart was especially big toward children no doubt because of how he had suffered as a child, had a sentimental side that was masked by a dashing ladies’ man façade.
At one point, Hamilton learned that a spy was reporting to Howe’s headquarters about Washington’s plans, which was a most disturbing intelligence leak obviously from an inside source. Therefore, at the Morristown encampment located just north of the Watchung Mountains, Washington wrote out a twelve-page bogus report, at Hamilton’s urging, that detailed the army’s strength by regiment. Most importantly, this report exaggerated the Continental Army’s strength at Morristown from the actual number of around three thousand to an inflated total of twelve thousand troops. Then, with the spy present, Hamilton suddenly departed the room with the phony excuse of needing to search for additional papers. He of course conveniently left Washington’s report sitting on his desk. Naturally, in Hamilton’s absence, the spy closely scanned the “top secret” document. Therefore, the manpower figure—four times higher than the army’s actual number—was later reported by the spy to Howe, who was completely taken in by the clever ruse.21
Additionally whenever Washington was absent from headquarters, Hamilton filled in to perform capably as the army’s chief intelligence officer. Hamilton not only deciphered secret agent dispatches to learn of the most recent intelligence, but also acted upon them in a timely manner, especially in critical situations. In July 1780, while Washington was away from headquarters and after receiving new intelligence from covert asset Abraham Woodhull in New York City, Hamilton was alarmed by what he read from the latest report. Therefore, on the afternoon of July 21, he made the independent decision to immediately warn the commander, General Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vigneur, Comte de Rochambeau, of the French expeditionary force, that he had “just received advice … that the enemy are making an embarkation with which they menace the French fleet and army [because] fifty transports are said to have gone up the [Long Island] Sound to take in troops and proceed directly to Rhode Island.”22
To gather and evaluate intelligence, Hamilton also personally interrogated New Jersey Loyalists who had been rounded up and brought to the Morristown headquarters. Relying upon his good judgment and laser-like ability to ascertain the truth, he determined “who were innocent or guilty of trivial offenses from those whose crimes were of a capital or heinous nature.”23
Overall, Hamilton advocated less harsh measures than Washington, after separating fact from fiction (rumor in his case) like an experienced sleuth, adhering to the axiom that all suspects were innocent until proven guilty. Because of Hamilton’s morally based penchant for fairness—seldom seen from angry patriotic Americans toward Loyalists in this increasingly bitter civil war, the board of inquiry bestowed true justice. The most serious offenders were sent to Governor William Livingston of New Jersey for punishment, while the board released (to Hamilton’s satisfaction because he had deemed that they posed no threat) Loyalists who posed no threat. Reasoning like a fair-minded lawyer in advising against harsh measures because the confiscation of Tory property “is not recognizable by martial law,” Hamilton’s morality and sense of fair play, stemming in part from having been dealt with so unfairly by Danish law and his mother’s vindictive first husband, were based upon his egalitarian conviction that the top priority should be “the least encroachment either upon the rights of citizen or of the magistrate.”24
Meanwhile, the spring campaign of 1777 lingered on the horizon, offering new hopes to win America’s independence on the battlefield. In what little spare time that was stolen away from his headquarters duties and like most healthy young men who wanted to demonstrate their manhood, the warmer weather fueled Hamilton’s romantic side. Throughout the long winter in Morristown, Hamilton had enchanted Martha Washington and her circle of ladies—seemingly any female, almost regardless of age, who happened to come into his orbit. He enjoyed tea with ladies in Morristown, and very likely a good deal more with any attractive, young woman who allowed herself to be seduced with his sweet words and charm. Having seen the ardent Hamilton long in heated pursuit of female prey at headquarters’ social events, Mrs. Washington considered Hamilton a love-minded tomcat, seemingly always on the prowl for ladies at night.25
With the refined charm of a true Creole from the West Indies, the swashbuckling ladies’ man finally focused the main thrust of his romantic attentions on a single target not long after taking his new position at Washington’s headquarters. A significant leap in social status enhanced the possibilities of a successful conquest of the heart of an old friend, the aristocratic daughter of New Jersey’s first governor, William Livingston. While a student at the Elizabethtown Academy, Hamilton had first become enchanted with the seventeen-year-old lady and her Presbyterian upper class world, when he visited her father’s home in Elizabethtown. But now, six years later, Hamilton possessed considerably more experience and knowledge about the ways of upper class American women of the aristocracy instead of the more common Caribbean girls of his past.
At Morristown, Hamilton openly flirted with Catherine “Kitty” Livingston, now age twenty-three, with his usual aggressive style softened by wit, humor, and well-chosen words. After she later asked Hamilton in a letter to send her information about the military and political situation, he had the audacity (in the typical Hamilton style of no-holds-barred) to pry open the door to what he hoped would be a romantic relationship with the attractive daughter of one of America’s wealthiest men. In an April 11, 1777, letter that revealed his very forward intentions of a bedroom nature that he hoped might lead to marriage, Hamilton also displayed the rare blend of his refined sense of humor and well-honed seductive skills. He simultaneously boasted and teasingly warned “Lady Kitty” how, “you know, I am renowned for gallantry” with the ladies. Boldly offering to become the lover of a wealthy governor’s daughter if she only agreed to embrace his ample charms while simultaneously answering her military-related questions, he emphasized how he “shall always be able to entertain you…. After knowing exactly your taste, and whether you are of a romantic, or discreet temper, as to love affairs, I will endeavor to regulate myself by it…. But amidst my amorous transports, let me not forget, that I am also to perform the part of a politician and intelligencer…. Of this, I am pretty confident, that the ensuing campaign will effectually put to death all their hopes; and establish the success of our cause beyond a doubt. You and I, as well as our neighbors, are deeply interested to pray for victory, and its necessary attendant peace.”26
When Kitty replied to his April 11 letter, Hamilton passed it around to the other aides like a romantic trophy. This callousness (considered more so in the morally strict American religious-based culture rather than the much looser Caribbean value system of the tropics) also suggested that she might have had some mutual interest to Hamilton’s rather indiscrete proposal. After all, a letter from a pretty governor’s daughter, who had all the things coveted by a young man hoping to move fast up the social ladder and as high as possible, was something that was eagerly devoured by staff officers. As in the case of the ravishing “Kitty” Livingston, Hamilton’s success with attractive women became as well known as his aggressiveness on the battlefield.
As he bragged his credo to Ms. Livingston in his response to her which displayed a bold facade of confidence, if not arrogance, that masked deep-seated insecurity from his dysfunctional past—and the complete antithesis of the privileged life of Kitty—“ALL FOR LOVE is my motto.” Hamilton’s written words revealed his playboy tendencies, which seemed to contradict his intellectualism and high-minded philosophical nature of this Renaissance man: “Phlegmatists may say I take too great a license at first setting out, and witlings may sneer and wonder how a man the least acquainted with the world should show so great facility in his confidences—to a lady.”27
While Hamilton was writing his letter to pretty Kitty Livingston and dreaming about a romance that never evolved to his satisfaction, thriving instead in his fertile imagination, he also was eager to strike a blow at his adopted nation’s invaders, who were dealing harshly with patriots, both soldiers and civilians, in the occupied areas. As he penned in an early summer 1777 letter that was decidedly moralistic and philosophical: “it is painful to leave a part of the inhabitants a prey to enemy depredations; and it is wounding to the feelings of a soldier, to see an enemy parading before him and daring him to fight which he is obliged to decline. But a part must be sacrificed to the whole, and passion must give way to reason.”28
Hamilton and Washington’s “family” received assistance near the end of June 1777, when Colonel Timothy Pickering arrived at headquarters, after accepting the adjutant general position on Washington’s staff. Pickering was an aspiring Harvard College graduate from the cod fishing port of Salem, Massachusetts, located just north of Boston. Representing the fifth generation of his family in New England, he was also the son of a Congregational deacon who was a fiery abolitionist. Like Hamilton, Pickering was initially reluctant to join Washington’s staff. He had greater familial responsibilities than Hamilton, including a wife, Becky White-Pickering, and son, John, at home. Unlike Hamilton who was the ultimate nationalist, Pickering had been initially lukewarm to the idea of America’s independence. But now all of those doubts had vanished, and Pickering, in his early thirties and nearly ten years older than Hamilton, became another respected member of the “family.”29
A Doomed Philadelphia
Hamilton had served in Washington’s little military “family” for less than six months before the first serious threat to America’s capital of Philadelphia emerged. As the top intelligence officer at headquarters after Washington, Hamilton sought to ascertain Howe’s true strategic intentions from the flow of recent intelligence reports by the secret network of New York City spies, as well as British deserters from the New York City garrison. As early as March 10, 1777, and with seemingly prophetic insight, Hamilton already knew about Howe’s next strategic move: “We have, I think, the most decisive evidence that the enemy’s operations will be directed on this quarter [and Howe] will move towards Philadelphia.”30
In an insightful letter to the New York Committee of Correspondence, he correctly advised how the British had targeted Philadelphia for capture, because of their “well-grounded rule in war to strike first at the capital towns and cities.”31 Therefore Hamilton repeatedly cautioned Washington to keep the army near Philadelphia to protect it instead of taking the tempting bait of clever British feints, or even more serious threats posed by Howe. Such British tactics were calculated to draw Washington away from America’s capital and into the unfavorable tactical situation of a large-scale conventional battle on open ground, where the ill-trained and less-capable Continental Army could be destroyed.32
Hamilton was so confident about the wisdom of his strategic insights that he correctly informed the members of the New York Committee of Correspondence—who were alarmed by rumors that the British planned to advance up the Hudson to capture Albany—that Howe had Philadelphia in his sights and not Albany. On Saturday April 5, 1777, Hamilton presented his sound strategic-political reasoning based upon his own analysis and from what he had gathered from the intelligence that flowed into headquarters: “As to your apprehensions of an attempt up the North [Hudson] River I imagine you may discard any uneasiness on that score, though it will be at all times adviseable to be on the watch…. Philadelphia is an object calculated to strike and attract their attention. It has all along been the main source of supplies towards the war and the getting it into their possession would deprive us of a wheel we could very badly spare in the great political and military machine.”33 The aristocratic Lord Howe, who had led British troops in America during the French and Indian War and had an affinity for Americans in general, could not have said it better himself.
In a May 7, 1777, letter from Washington’s Morristown headquarters, Hamilton took quill pen in hand to explain to the New York Committee of Correspondence how the British “will no doubt embark for some expedition by water … either … to Philadelphia or up the North [Hudson] River…. The testimony of every person, that comes from them, confirms this fact, that their horses are in such miserable condition as to render them incapable of any material operations by land [in a march up the Hudson for Albany and] I know not how it will be possible for them to penetrate any distance [north deeper into New York] in the Country.”34
Tactical Maneuvers in New Jersey
Based in part on what Hamilton had ascertained from intelligence and his sound advice to ignore British feints up the Hudson, and march south to oppose Howe’s main intention to advance on Philadelphia in overwhelming numbers, Washington moved the army south around twenty miles from Morristown to strong, elevated positions North of Middlebrook, in east-central New Jersey, on May 28, after crossing the Passaic River. Here, Washington established his army in a good defensive position, and ordered the digging of light defenses. From the fortified ridge of one of the chains of the Watchung Mountains south of Morristown, he could keep a closer watch on his opponent and perhaps even contest Howe’s long-anticipated advance southwest toward Philadelphia, if a good tactical opportunity was suddenly presented. Situated only seven miles from the British outpost of Brunswick, New Jersey, Washington waited on tactical developments in an excellent defensive position.35
During the third week of June, Howe evacuated Brunswick. He then withdrew around a dozen miles slightly northeast to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on Raritan Bay which the Raritan River entered. Based on accurate intelligence combined with his own strategic insights, Hamilton had already predicted and revealed Howe’s next bold movement in his May 7 letter to the New York Committee of Correspondence: “We have reason to suspect the enemy will soon evacuate Brunswick and push for Amboy.”36
Sensing a possible tactical opportunity when Howe finally departed Brunswick as expected by Hamilton, Washington ordered his troops to advance into the sprawling farmlands of central New Jersey’s plains east of the three Watchung Mountain chains. The experienced Howe, with a far larger army, planned to lay a tactical trap. Howe maneuvered on May 26 in the hope of cutting Washington off from the high ground of Middlebrook. However, as Hamilton advised, Washington withdrew west from the New Jersey lowlands rather than risk almost inevitable defeat if he had attempted to stand up against a seasoned general and thousands of well-trained professionals in an open field fight.
But Washington’s hasty retreat back to the good defensive ground of Middlebrook caused the politically minded Hamilton more than usual concern. With his astute political sense, Hamilton knew that Washington had left himself open to political attack from the naysayers, including from Congress, by his withdrawal even before a vastly superior opponent. Therefore, in an attempt to nip the inevitable criticism in the bud and acting almost like Washington’s guardian angel in protecting the commander-in-chief’s reputation, Hamilton went to work in the art of damage control with his customary zeal. He wrote Robert R. Livingston, a respected New York politician of the Committee and graduate of King’s College, to justify the strategic wisdom of Washington’s retrograde movement on May 28. Hamilton praised the Virginian’s tactical decision of not risking the army’s life against a superior opponent, while placing the strategic situation in the proper historical and political perspective: “I know the comments that some people will make on our Fabian conduct. It will be imputed either to cowardice or to weakness: But the more discerning, I trust, will not find it difficult to conceive that it proceeds from the truest policy…. The liberties of America are an infinite stake. We should not play a desperate game for it or put it upon the issue of a single cast of the die. The loss of one general engagement may effectively ruin us, and it would certainly be folly to hazard it, unless our resources for keeping up an army were at an end, and some decisive blow was absolutely necessary; or unless our strength was so great as to give certainty of success. Neither is the case … Their affairs will be growing worse—our’s better;—so that delay will ruin them. It will serve to perplex and fret them, and precipitate them into measures, that we can turn to good account. Our business then is to avoid a General engagement and waste the enemy away [and] in a desultory teazing [sic] way.”37
With additional active campaigning in the spring 1777 campaign about to open, Washington and Hamilton busily made preparations for detailed troop movements, after securing as many new recruits as possible. On May 30, 1777, worried that Howe might attempt crossing the Delaware, Hamilton wrote to Captain Francis Grice, Assistant Deputy Quartermaster, to emphasize the timely importance of making “use of wagons” for “transporting the twelve boats you mention. The General expects it will be done with all possible dispatch, as it is absolutely necessary we should have all the boats we can collect at and about Coryel’s ferry [twenty-five miles north of Trenton on the Delaware], in case we should want to make use of them. The General expected, that by this time, all the boats were removed from Trenton to Coryel’s” Ferry, because they “may be serviceable to the Enemy, should they make a sudden push that way” to Trenton.38
On July 1, 1777, in a letter to Reverend Hugh Knox, Hamilton described the most recent military developments centered around the possession of Philadelphia, the primary bone of contention during the 1777 Campaign because of the political, military, and psychological importance of the capital: “On the 20th of June, the Campaign may be said to have opened by a general movement of the British army, to put into execution a project they had been preparing for all winter—the possessing themselves of Philadelphia. But they have been disappointed in this expectation. Our army was situated in a strong position on the heights of Middlebrook…. They manoeuvered [sic] a while … but finding they could not bring us to battle [and] that the country people [militia] were gathering with great spirit to reinforce us, … they were compelled to decamp [and then] return to their old” position.39
Howe’s setback in unsuccessfully attempting to force Washington to engage in an open field fight in the New Jersey lowlands left Hamilton in a confident mood, anticipating positive developments for America’s military fortunes. Compared to the losses and fiascos of 1776, Washington was now a much better general, thanks in part to more thorough intelligence analyzed and coordinated by Hamilton, and to his sage advice on seemingly all matters. Presenting his broad strategic analysis, Hamilton had earlier concluded his letter to Reverend Knox by emphasizing how he was “unable to form any conclusion satisfactory to my own judgment [but] I think they will hardly be mad enough to plunge again into that nest of Hornets, the Eastern States.”40
Hamilton possessed ample good reason to gloat about Howe’s thwarted New Jersey ambitions in his letter, because Washington had made the correct tactical moves. After a brief encounter known as the battle of Short Hills on the Scotch Plains on June 26, Howe had finally realized that no opportunity existed to destroy an increasingly wary Washington. The Virginian possessed the advantage of retiring to his strong position in the Watchung Mountains at Middlebrook, whenever threatened. An appropriate historical analogy revealed Hamilton’s extensive knowledge of ancient Roman history and tactics. Roman leader Quintus Fabius Maximus had smartly withdrawn before the brilliant generalship of Hannibal and his North African army of multi-ethnic warriors, including blacks, in 217 BC to avoid a general engagement that might prove disastrous. As Hamilton emphasized in regard to a policy that he had believed was the true secret to success even when a student at King’s College, Washington’s decision to withdraw was tactically correct, earning him a reputation as “our American Fabius.” A frustrated Howe retired all the way to the safety of Staten Island, after having failed to strike a decisive blow upon Washington’s elusive army that was no longer easy prey.
“Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne’s Descent Toward Albany
Meanwhile, new strategic developments were taking shape far to the north near the Canadian border. Built in 1755 by the French with the most advanced European engineering skills of the day, the star-shaped bastion of Fort Ticonderoga, located in northern New York above Albany, was captured by British forces in early July 1777. British and Hessian forces, under Lieutenant General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne, had placed cannon atop the hills surrounding the largest fortress in all North America, forcing the garrison’s capitulation.
Having proudly worn a scarlet uniform since age fifteen, Burgoyne had also served as an indolent playboy member of Parliament. He even enjoyed connections to the upper class elite and King George III. Now it seemed like Albany—the vital supply base of America’s northern army under General Philip Schuyler (Hamilton’s future father-in-law who had no means of saving Fort Ticonderoga, but unfairly suffered severe criticism as if the fort’s loss was all his fault)—might be threatened from the north by Burgoyne, who continued to advance south, and simultaneously by Howe, who could march north to meet this offensive from Canada. Even if Howe failed to advance north up the Hudson River, Fort Ticonderoga’s fall opened up a strategic avenue for Burgoyne to push south all the way to New York City to isolate New England from the other states.
Therefore, Washington, Hamilton, and his headquarters staff needed to acquire additional intelligence to ascertain what exactly these new British movements meant to the overall strategic picture, while contemplating their next move to counter the most serious threat. The situation was crucial, because if Washington’s main army was not immediately threatened by Howe, then the commander-in-chief could reinforce General Schuyler in the north against Burgoyne, who possessed an open land corridor south down the Hudson.
After Howe withdrew to Staten Island, Washington moved his headquarters to Smiths Clove in Orange County, New York. Washington worried that Burgoyne might link up with Howe to form a formidable concentration of military might that could deliver a knock-out blow to the Continental Army. From Smiths Clove, Hamilton wrote to Gouverneur Morris on July 22, 1777, about the latest strategic developments. Once again revealing his keen insight, Hamilton was prophetic in predicting that Burgoyne would meet with disaster if he advanced too far south parallel to the Hudson and deeper into New York’s depths on his own and without adequate support: “I am doubtful whether Burgoigne [sic] will attempt to penetrate far, and whether he will not content himself with harassing our back [western frontier] settlements by parties assisted by the savages…. The doubt rises from some appearances that indicate a Southern movement of General Howes army, which, if it should really happen, will certainly be a barrier against any further impressions of Burgoigne [sic]; for it cannot be supposed he would be rash enough to plunge into the bosom of the Country, without an expectation of being met by General Howe…. I confess however that the appearances I allude to do not carry a full evidence in my mind; because … I cannot conceive upon what principle of common sense or military propriety Howe can be running away from Burgoigne [sic] to the Southward.”41
Only two days before Hamilton wrote this prophetic letter to Morris, who served as a member of the New York Committee of Correspondence, General Howe ordered thousands of troops aboard a vast flotilla of more than two hundred eighty ships that filled New York harbor. Without Washington, Hamilton, or the “family” knowing what was happening in the next phase of the 1777 campaign, Howe’s mighty armada sailed from Sandy Hook Bay that led out to the Atlantic on July 23.42
Ironically, the confusion at Washington’s headquarters about Howe’s next tactical move was less than the confusion at British headquarters. London’s March 1777 strategic plan called for Howe to march north to meet Burgoyne, who was pushing south down the Hudson, after he captured Fort Ticonderoga: an excellent strategy calculated to sever the infant United States in two and deliver a death stroke the revolution with the timely unity of two strong forces. However, not adhering to London’s ambitious strategic plan for the summer campaign in which Burgoyne played the leading role, Howe focused instead on capturing Philadelphia. Therefore and unknown to him, Burgoyne was now on his own in marching south along the Hudson toward Albany in “happy ignorance” of the systematic unraveling of London’s strategic plan that seemed to promise decisive victory. Once again, Hamilton was prophetic and his strategic insight was right on target. He seriously doubted that Howe would make the smart strategic decision of moving north to link with Burgoyne instead of targeting Philadelphia, since the often feuding British military leaders “generally acted like fools.”43
With Burgoyne’s Army pushing south through northern New York without meeting opposition but moving at a leisurely pace, Hamilton began to grow increasingly worried about the overall strategic situation because of the lack of resistance, however. From the “Head Quarters Camp Near German Town,” Pennsylvania, and about ten miles north of Philadelphia, on August 7, 1777, Hamilton wrote to Robert R. Livingston, a King’s College graduate (Class of 1765) and former member of the Continental Congress: “I am with you exceedingly anxious for the Safety of your State” of New York.44
What now troubled Hamilton was the ease with which General Burgoyne’s forces advanced steadily south through upstate New York with impunity. The people of New York had not rallied to meet the ever-growing threat. He feared that “the loss of [New York] would be a more affecting blow to America than any that could be struck by Mr. Howe to the southward.” Hamilton expressed his growing concern because of “the panic in the army (I am afraid pretty high up) and the want of zeal in the Eastern States are the only alarming Considerations, for tho’ Burgoine [sic] should be weak in numbers I suppose him, if the army Tumble at his name, & those who Command it ready to fly from the most defencible [sic] Ground at the Terror of small Scouting Parties of Indians, and, if to Crown the Whole the Eastern States go to Sleep & leave New York dismembered & Exhausted, as it is, to play the whole Game against a Skilful [sic] & Enterprising Antagonist; I say if that is to be the Case, we can look for nothing but Misfortune upon Misfortune, & Conquest without a blow.”45
Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton’s early warnings about Howe’s ambitious designs on capturing America’s capital were verified on August 22, when the British fleet of more than two hundred fifty ships was finally reported in the Chesapeake Bay and sailing north toward Philadelphia and not up the Hudson to assist Burgoyne. General Howe knew that by approaching Philadelphia from the south, he would force Washington to move out of a good defensive position and into the open, where he could be vanquished.
Meanwhile, Washington’s Army had remained stationary during this period because Howe’s intentions were not entirely clear. America’s extensive intelligence network, including Hamilton’s best efforts, faltered on this occasion, because the immense fleet and thousands of troops had simply disappeared from view and could not be tracked. After intelligence reports had reached headquarters that Howe’s troops had boarded ships in New York harbor in early July, Washington could only wait on the next development. It had been generally assumed that Howe would proceed up the Hudson to link with Burgoyne.
With the new intelligence in August which confirmed that Philadelphia was Howe’s true target, Washington and Hamilton now realized the elusive answer to the riddle. In consequence, Washington led his army from the Germantown area around thirty-five miles southwest to Wilmington, Delaware, to ease into a good position to protect Philadelphia on the south. Explaining why he had not entered Delaware Bay, Howe had decided not to risk running past the strong American forts positioned on the narrow Delaware River, which entered the head of Delaware Bay, below Philadelphia, and possibly losing ships from defensive obstacles sunk in the shallow waters. Instead, he had wisely chosen to advance overland on the America’s capital, after leaving Chesapeake Bay, which paralleled Delaware Bay to the east. Consequently, Howe’s Army of around eighteen thousand men poured ashore at Head of Elk Landing, in Maryland’s northeastern corner and located at Chesapeake Bay’s head, for the march on Philadelphia only around thirty-five miles to the northeast.
On September 1 from the commercial port of Wilmington, northeast of the Head of Elk Landing and located at the upper end of Delaware Bay, where Washington had established the army’s encampment after having marched through the dusty streets of Philadelphia to a cheering populace, Hamilton wrote another letter to Governor Morris, who had long benefitted from his sage political and military advice. After having acquired intelligence about Howe’s Army, Hamilton was perplexed by the lack of more vigorous movement (which he had long worried about) by Howe toward Philadelphia, although his army was encamped on Pennsylvania soil within easy striking distance of America’s capital.
Perplexed by Howe’s lack of aggressiveness, Hamilton expressed how Howe “still lies there in a state of inactivity; in a great measure I believe from the want of horses, to transport his baggage and stores. It seems he sailed [from Staten Island] with only about three weeks provendor and was six at sea. This has occasioned the death of a great number of his horses, and has made skeletons of the rest. He will be obliged to collect a supply from the neighboring country before he can move [on Philadelphia and] The enemy will have Philadelphia, if they dare make a bold push for it, unless we fight them a pretty general action.”46
Hamilton’s aggressive instincts had once again risen to the fore at a time when a more cautious Washington, hoping to avoid a showdown, still embraced his Fabian policy in the hope of wearing down the invaders and depriving them of supplies. But Hamilton, whose insights and instincts indicated that a good tactical opportunity existed, sensed that Howe might well be vulnerable at this time, after having ventured inland across unfamiliar country. He therefore believed that Howe could be caught by surprise and defeated by a sudden attack, because his army was in overall poor condition.
As Hamilton stressed in no uncertain terms in the same Monday September 1 letter to Morris, and revealed a bold tactical viewpoint that he had almost certainly mentioned earlier to Washington: “I opine we ought to do it [strike the stationary Howe], and that we shall beat them soundly if we do. The [Pennsylvania] Militia seem pretty generally stirring [to resist Howe]. Our army is in high health & spirits. We shall I hope have twice the enemy’s numbers. I would not only fight them, but I would attack them; for I hold it an established maxim, that there is three to one in favour of the party attacking.”47
In overall tactical terms, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton was essentially correct in appreciating the possibility of benefitting from another Trenton-like strike to catch Howe—who was smug and complacent—because he would be caught by surprise, after his amphibious landing and long voyage by ship. While serving as Washington’s chief of staff, Hamilton had his own mind (clearly, a most aggressive one) and a very keen strategic one—not only prophetic but also almost clairvoyant in regard to Burgoyne’s and Howe’s monumental strategic efforts in 1777 at that: A fact fully appreciated by Washington, who continued to benefit from what this young officer had to relate to him with clarity and confidence.
Confirmed by solid intelligence that had been corroborated, Hamilton’s strategic and tactical sense continued to be right on-target to an amazing degree. Relying on experience and his readings of military history, he envisioned the unleashing of a surprise attack that might reap dramatic results because it was always best to strike a blow against an amphibious invader as close to the time of landing as possible before he gained additional strength, if Washington saw proper merit in such a possibility. An overconfident Howe was indeed vulnerable, while positioned in unfamiliar territory, far from his supply base of New York City, and encamped in an unfortified position without due caution. As mentioned, Hamilton correctly predicted that Burgoyne—whose “vanity [would evolve] into rashness,” in his words—would meet with disaster, if he penetrated too far south from his logistical base (Canada) on his own, into the wilderness depths of upstate New York. In a classic case of divide and conquer, Hamilton fully realized that defeating or forcing Howe to retire would leave Burgoyne more vulnerable, ensuring that the two forces never linked to deliver a fatal blow.48
Most of all, Hamilton knew that twin blows delivered upon Burgoyne and Howe to thwart their uncoordinated ambitious designs might turn the tide of the revolutionary struggle. Besides his sound tactical and strategic insights, the foundation of Hamilton’s natural aggressiveness lay in part in other often overlooked factors, including his strong religious faith and a sense of righteousness about America’s cause. Hamilton waged war like a holy warrior and Crusader of old. In a wartime letter to Hamilton, Reverend Knox emphasized that America’s fight was a “glorious struggle,” and the native West Indian wholeheartedly agreed. For Hamilton and Knox and so many others, Presbyterianism was a key factor which additionally fueled the revolutionary faith that America was the Promised Land and a New Israel, which had been chosen by God for the benefit of a new people, the Americans.
Especially as a recent immigrant who had been remade by the American experience in only a remarkably short time, Hamilton was the very embodiment of not only the new warrior, but also the new man in America in a truly New World transformation. Appropriately in the land of so many immigrants, mostly from western Europe, that was larger than anything he had ever seen before which were two key factors that made America so unique, Hamilton had been reinvigorated by the American experience. With a righteous zeal of a true son of the Age of Enlightenment in defense of what was considered a Promised Land, Hamilton waged war against an opponent who represented the worst Old World abuses. Hamilton embraced the enlightened concepts of American exceptionalism like a holy shroud, because he knew that was indeed the case, after his dark childhood experiences in the West Indies.
When so small that he had to be “placed standing by her side upon a table,” he had early learned about the Old Testament’s moral laws of the ancient Hebrews from an elder Jewish female scholar on Nevis. At that time, he had even learned to recite the Decalogue in Hebrew. Hamilton believed that the blessings of liberty were a gift from God: the American people’s true higher authority and certainly not the only too human autocrat King George III, as he had repeatedly emphasized in his prewar political writings to influence the colonists. Hamilton saw America as a blessed land with limitless possibilities and destined for future greatness, if the homespun revolutionaries under Washington could prevail in this war to save the golden and righteous vision of “a City upon a Hill,” in the memorable 1630 words of Massachusetts governor John Winthrop.49
The same age as Hamilton, John Laurens, the idealistic South Carolinian who hailed from a wealthy upper class family that owned hundreds of slaves, served as a volunteer member of Washington’s staff and made significant contributions. He was almost a mirror-image of Hamilton, not only with a youthful handsomeness and a lively personality, but also a similar hot temperament, dashing qualities, and hatred of slavery. They were bound together by an all-consuming passion in behalf of America’s cause that they viewed as sacred. The two young men became the closest of friends, risking their lives side-by-side on the battlefield. Less of a master of his emotions than Hamilton, Laurens had first applied for an official position on Washington’s staff on August 4, 1777. However, despite having only three staff officers serving in his military “family,” Washington had inexplicably refused Laurens’s request to join him.
Nevertheless, Washington needed the talented Laurens, whose sense of dedication, energy, and enthusiasm was boundless like Hamilton’s. He was the well-educated son of South Carolina congressman, merchant, large planter, and the future president (the fifth in November 1777) of the Continental Congress, Henry Laurens. John was of French Huguenot heritage (like Hamilton’s mother) like so many other patriots in not only South Carolina, where the lower Santee River country had early served as a Huguenot haven. Washington had then formally asked the young Southerner, in his early twenties, of so much promise to “become a Member of my Family.”50
Therefore, Laurens first joined and served in Washington’s staff as a volunteer aide-de-camp. He informed his father by letter how he desired either a “glorious Death, or the Triumph of the Cause” of America. Such words correctly made his father concerned about his son’s attitude that guaranteed a daredevil recklessness on the battlefield. Laurens gained his official appointment to aide-de-camp on October 6, 1777.51
Brandywine Creek Defeat September 11
As the final showdown to confront the advance of Howe’s Army loomed, the fighting spirit in Washington’s Army was high in the spring and summer of 1777. The recent march of Washington’s men through Philadelphia had been a festive event that heightened the army’s morale and confidence: among the careful considerations that had convinced Hamilton that Howe could be attacked with success, before he neared Philadelphia. More than ten thousand Continental soldiers, wearing recently washed uniforms and sprigs of green in hats, had marched with disciplined step and pride through their nation’s capital, while the crowds cheered wildly. Washington, Hamilton, and the common soldiers in the ranks also now fought under a new flag. The Second Continental Congress had recently passed the Flag Resolution on June 14, 1777, to create the truly first national flag, the earliest “Stars and Stripes.”52
On September 10, Washington positioned his army in a lengthy north-south defensive line along the east bank of Brandywine Creek, located less than thirty miles southwest of Philadelphia and flowing into the Delaware at Wilmington to the southeast, before Howe’s steady advance north toward the capital from the Head of Elk southwest of Wilmington and Philadelphia. Forced upon Washington who had no choice but to now attempt to defend the approach to Philadelphia for pressing strategic, political, and psychological reasons, the showdown between the two armies of about equal size was now inevitable. As usual, Washington hoped that Howe would rashly unleash frontal assaults as at Bunker Hill, but this rosy scenario lingered only as a fantasy.
Washington’s defensive line on the Philadelphia side (east) of Brandywine Creek was over-extended for six miles in a north–south line along the creek’s east bank to guard against a crossing by Howe’s troops. Because of mounting political pressures from Congress and the populace to save the capital, Howe had correctly calculated that Washington would be forced to fight in the open in order to protect Philadelphia, providing him the long-awaited opportunity to destroy the Continental Army. The consummate professional, Howe correctly reasoned that Washington would not allow him to march north unopposed into the young nation’s capital without a determined fight to appease Congress and the people of a new republic. Therefore, Washington had established his aforementioned defensive position.
When Washington mistakenly believed that Howe, because of highly effective tactical feint at the American center with a full third of his army, would attempt to cross Brandywine Creek at Chadd’s Ford, he left himself vulnerable on his right flank on the north to a stealthy British flank movement to the northwest. Howe boldly divided his army, concluding that Washington was awaiting the frontal assaults that he would never unleash. Consequently, as if reading the Virginian’s tactical mind, Howe knew that Washington would remain stationary, forfeiting the initiative and allowing him to maneuver at will. Consequently, on the afternoon of September 11, Howe led the largest part of his army on a march north up the creek’s west bank. Attacking from the north, Earl Charles Cornwallis easily turned Washington’s weak right flank, which seemed to dangle in mid-air. After a nearly fifteen-mile forced march north, and then crossing two little-known fords (Washington was unfamiliar with the region and the ford’s locations), north of the lengthy lines of most American troops at Chadd’s Ford, to the south, Cornwallis’ flank movement around Washington’s right was a brilliant tactical stroke, attempting to repeat his one-sided Long Island success.
With his right flank turned and after General John Sullivan, a hard-fighting Scotch-Irish general, had been victimized by Cornwallis’ flank maneuver like at Long Island in late August 1776, an alarmed Washington, Hamilton, Laurens, and other staff members departed headquarters in a hurry and mounted up. With an escort of dragoons, they galloped to the crisis point to the north on the double. Leading the way, Washington’s muscular charger easily leaped over one rail fence after another, and Hamilton and other staff officers followed suit in the wild ride. In this fast-paced crisis situation at the north, Washington and Hamilton did all that he could to rally the troops. Hamilton even reverted back to his old familiar role of a New York artillery captain to orchestrate the positioning of guns in a desperate effort to stem the tide. Hamilton then mounted his war horse, and rode down the line to inspire the shaky troops with raised saber, while shouting words of encouragement.
But all of the best efforts of Washington, Hamilton, Laurens, and the Marquis de Lafayette were to no avail. When Lafayette, only age twenty, was shot in the leg and fell from his horse, Hamilton rushed to his Gallic friend’s aid. With the British advancing in overwhelming numbers in this collapsing sector north of Chadd’s Ford, Hamilton pulled his young French friend, who had long enjoyed the native West Indian’s fluency in French, to safety. Meanwhile, in keeping with his reputation, Laurens’ recklessness and courage were displayed in full, and “it was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded,” wrote an amazed Lafayette.
Clearly, as if a replay of the humiliating defeats around New York City in 1776, Washington became a victim of Howe’s tactical masterpiece and abundant professional experience. With thousands of redcoats about to gain his rear behind his right to the north combined with renewed offensive pressure at Chadd’s Ford on his center, Washington had no choice but to order his out-flanked army to retreat, which shortly became a rout. In the encroaching darkness of September 11 (one of the most humiliating days in the history of the Continental Army), Washington and Hamilton and other stunned staff members rode north toward Philadelphia amid the chaos of a routed army.
Although having been tactically befuddled by Howe’s adroit maneuvering that caught him by surprise, and suffering about double the losses of the British as a consequence, Washington still remained in a defiant position between Howe and Philadelphia to safeguard the capital, after retiring to the northeast. Washington had been beaten, but his army remained intact to face the next challenge that was sure to come. Most importantly, Howe had been unable to deliver a knockout blow on the resilient Americans, despite the many tactical errors typical of amateurs in rebellion.53
For sound political and strategic reasons, an undaunted Washington was still determined to defend the new nation’s capital. But his army was in overall bad shape after the humiliating Brandywine defeat and high losses. Not discouraged, Hamilton was still eager for any opportunity that might emerge to strike a blow and drive Howe away from Philadelphia. Most of all, he wanted to redeem America’s tarnished honor and the army’s reputation after the sharp setback. Meanwhile, Washington was forced to guard a lengthy stretch of the south bank of the Schuylkill River, the last natural barrier protecting the republic’s capital, to keep Howe from crossing the river.
However, Washington was suddenly stunned to receive an urgent cavalry report at headquarters that redcoats were pushing toward Swede’s Ford, where shallow waters and a rocky bottom made for an easy crossing of large numbers of troops, a half dozen miles northwest of Philadelphia. In the dark, Washington now needed precise intelligence about Howe’s movements for any realistic chance of successfully defending America’s capital. Was this a feint or the beginning of a full-scale assault?
As usual, Washington knew that he could depend upon Hamilton for providing him with an accurate and reliable report of the most recent tactical developments, when the existence of America’s capital was at stake. Therefore, Washington ordered Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, Captain Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, and eight Virginia cavalrymen to immediately embark upon a risky mission to gather intelligence. Hamilton was also ordered to destroy the flour mills at Daverser’s Ferry along the Schuylkill to deny provisions to Howe’s Army. A resourceful and aggressive cavalryman of outstanding ability, Lee (the dashing father of General Robert Edward Lee, who was destined to engage in his own revolutionary struggle on behalf of still another republic and eighty-six years later targeted Philadelphia for capture at the zenith of the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign) was the right man—along with Hamilton—for this crucial mission upon which so much now depended.54
Hamilton’s Narrow Escape
As the highest-ranking officer of the scouting party, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton led his contingent of mounted men to the Schuylkill. Here, on September 18, Hamilton scouted along the tree-lined river bank before returning to Daverser’s Ferry to destroy the flour mills. Hamilton had discovered that the “enemy are on the road to Sweedes [Swede’s] ford, the main body about four miles from it.” Then, while he and his men were torching the flour mills at Daverse’s Ferry, Hamilton was caught by surprise by the sudden appearance of the British Army’s advance. However, thinking ahead as usual, he had been sufficiently prudent to have tied up a flatboat on the riverbank just in case a hasty departure was needed. With the British dragoons drawing close, Hamilton and four comrades raced for the riverbank and jumped into the flatboat. They then cast off as quickly as possible, but the Britons were too close, and hurriedly gained the shoreline.55 In Hamilton’s words: “They sent a party this evening to Davesers ferry, which fired upon me and some others in crossing it, killed one man, wounded another, and disabled my horse.”56
This was another close call for Hamilton, and even more precarious than he mentioned in his typical modesty. The British advance party consisted of elite cavalrymen, who knew how to efficiently kill and capture rebels, especially when they were isolated too far before the main army. Despite the fact that the fast-thinking Lee had drawn attention by riding away with his men in a different direction to bait the British dragoons into pursuit, Hamilton and several comrades found themselves in serious trouble. The river’s current prevented a quick escape, leaving Hamilton and his men little more than sitting ducks to the line of dragoons along the riverbank. Consequently, Hamilton was only able to escape the volleys by diving from the flatboat and going underwater. As mentioned, one of Hamilton’s oarsmen was killed and another fell wounded, while his horse was hit by close-range volleys fired from cavalry carbines that swept the flat-bottomed boat. Hamilton, a good swimmer, stayed underwater for so long that his comrades believed that he had drowned.
Hamilton, who had learned to swim when he had played in the Caribbean’s waters as a youth, then swam across the wide Schuylkill under this hot fire, escaping to the Philadelphia side of the river. As Hamilton later penned on the evening of September 18: “They came on so suddenly that one [flat]boat was left adrift on the other side, which will of course fall into their hands and by the help of that they will get possession of another, which was abandoned by those who had the direction of it and left afloat, in spite of every thing that I could do to the contrary.”57
Alarmed about the impending grim fate of members of Congress (hanging of rebel political leaders if captured) with enemy troops edging so close to Philadelphia, and without Washington able to stop the British from crossing the Schuylkill at Swede’s Ford, Hamilton knew that he had to act fast. He was still wet and in an agitated state when he penned a hasty note to John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress. With his political priorities foremost and fearing the worst, Hamilton knew that America could not afford to have Congressmen captured, tried, and executed like so many Irish rebels for centuries. From an express rider dispatched by Hamilton in a hurry to Philadelphia, Hancock received the lieutenant colonel’s September 18 dispatch just after midnight on September 19. Hamilton’s urgent warning stunned the wealthy merchant from Boston: “If Congress have not left Philadelphia, they ought to do it immediately without fail.”58
Hamilton’s warning was based on his existing knowledge of the strategic situation and revealed what he or any prudent leader would have done if commanding a highly efficient British Army to fully exploit the advantageous tactical advantage: “These two [captured] boats will convey fifty men across [the river] at a time so that in a few hours they may throw over a large party, perhaps sufficient to overmatch the [Pennsylvania] militia who may be between them and the city” of Philadelphia. Then, with political priorities foremost, Hamilton had also written about this crisis situation: “This renders the situation of Congress extremely precarious if they are not on their guard; my apprehensions for them are great, though it is not improbable they may not be realized.”59
Knowing that Washington possessed no plan for a decisive stand-up battle to decide Philadelphia’s fate if the larger and better-equipped British Army struck, Hamilton’s warning was well-founded, because America’s capital was vulnerable without protective defensive works and Washington possessed too few men. Therefore, out of necessity, members of Congress fled in an “undignified” manner for York, Pennsylvania, in the state’s remote interior. Even Washington was panicked when Captain Lee reported that Hamilton had found a watery grave in the Schuylkill River. He assumed either that the young man could not swim or that the long amount of time underwater indicated that he had been shot. Consequently, when a water-logged Hamilton suddenly showed at Washington’s headquarters in the early evening with a wry smile, a celebration erupted in honor of his miraculous escape and good fortune.
However, Hamilton had over-evaluated Howe’s abilities. In the end, therefore, Hamilton’s warning to Congress was actually premature and garnered criticism from John Adams who fled for his life, because Howe was hardly the aggressive commander as the young officer imagined, despite the golden tactical opportunity presented to him to now capture America’s capital. Most importantly for political and psychological reasons that were all-important for an infant nation struggling to survive, Congress was alerted by Hamilton in time. Every Congressman had vacated Philadelphia by the evening of September 19. However, Howe ultimately marched up the Schuylkill away from the city instead of crossing the river as Hamilton expected, wasting more than a week before taking Philadelphia.60
With the British and Hessians now hovering near Philadelphia’s suburbs, Washington and his headquarters staff worked overtime in a race against time. Because Philadelphia could not to be adequately defended, Washington understood that it was far more important for the army, which was now especially vulnerable after the Brandywine setback, to survive than the capital. Meanwhile, Washington breathed a sigh of relief that Hamilton had not drowned, and immediately put his lucky chief of staff back to work with a challenging new assignment of importance.
On September 21, Washington ordered Hamilton on another urgent mission that called for “much delicacy and discretion,” while giving him “extraordinary powers” at age twenty-two. He was directed to gather as many horses, supplies, and blankets from the Philadelphians, especially the many Tories whose presence made the mission dangerous for Hamilton with Howe’s Army now so close to the doomed capital. Collecting such invaluable essentials would help Washington’s ill-clad soldiers survive the upcoming winter, especially with the Congress and states having demonstrated an inability to properly fund and supply the army.
Of course, Washington hoped to keep as many horses as possible from falling into the hands of the British, who could then strengthen their cavalry arm to harass a Continental Army that was always short on horsemen who were needed to protect flanks and gather intelligence. Working fast, Hamilton directed Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Walton White, second in charge of the 4th Continental Light Dragoons and the senior officer who remained in a panicky Philadelphia, to round up horses in the city and from the surrounding area. To get the job done, Hamilton supervised around one hundred fifty followers, both infantrymen and cavalrymen. Displaying his humanitarianism even in a crisis situation, Hamilton was judicious and fair in his confiscations. He specified that the horses of poor people who depended on these animals for their livelihood (mostly farmers), horses ridden by transient people in Philadelphia, and those animals used by families fleeing the capital were not to be confiscated.
Lieutenant Colonel White was then directed by Hamilton to remove the collected horse herd to a safe location well beyond Howe’s reach. For two days and empowered by Washington’s full authority, Hamilton’s energetic diligence and hard work allowed him to gather a large amount of much-needed supplies for the army’s use this coming winter at Valley Forge, located just northwest of Philadelphia. This can-do young officer had everything, including invaluable munitions, placed aboard boats, which were then dispatched up the Delaware and far from the enemy’s reach, while operating right under Howe’s nose, when time was of the essence. Therefore, Howe would benefit relatively little in regard to gaining supplies as Philadelphia fell. Most importantly, what Hamilton had been gathered would be utilized by Washington’s troops to help to fuel their next offensive operation, the upcoming attack on Germantown in early October 1777. But most of all, had Hamilton not excelled in this crucial mission, Washington feared that “the ruin of the army, and perhaps the ruin of America” might well have resulted.61
With insufficient troops and with Howe retaining all of the advantages, Washington had little, if any, real chance of saving Philadelphia, even if he desired. He prudently was not about to risk sacrificing the army—the heart and soul of America’s increasingly fragile resistance effort—for a doomed city. On the afternoon of September 21, Howe maneuvered to within a dozen miles of the right of Washington’s Army, which was positioned on the Schuylkill to block the next British move: an effective feint that Washington was forced to meet. Washington, therefore, made his anticipated counter move by directing troops to the right. But when night fell and with blazing campfires giving the impression of the night’s encampment, Howe turned his army in the opposite direction and crossed over the Schuylkill at Swede’s Ford, northwest of Philadelphia, on Washington’s left. Thanks to another dazzling tactical maneuver for which Washington had no answer, thousands of redcoats, under the highly capable Cornwallis, then poured across the river without meeting opposition, sealing Philadelphia’s fate as Hamilton had long feared.62
In a tactical triumph, about half of Howe’s Army, with Lord Cornwallis leading the way in a resplendent uniform, marched into Philadelphia without opposition—America’s ultimate humiliation—on September 26. Feisty men in Washington’s ranks, including Hamilton, were disgruntled by the lack of a determined effort to stop Howe from capturing the capital. But Hamilton was wrong in this regard, with his heightened sense of American pride and nationalism dominating his usual sound reason for once. Most importantly, Washington’s Army remained intact to fulfill the more pressing strategic objective in a lengthy war of attrition: simple survival to keep the flame of revolution alive, despite one setback after another. However, with a trick up his sleeve, Washington saw the possibility of a logistical opportunity. He envisioned laying siege to Howe’s great prize of Philadelphia, which now had to be supplied over a long distance by water (up Delaware Bay and then the Delaware River), to eventually force the British Army out of the fallen capital.
Hamilton remained optimistic for future success. As he had earlier penned in a letter: “Our own army is continually growing stronger in men and discipline [and] we can maintain our present number … while the enemy must dwindle away; and at the end of the summer [1777] the disparity between us will be infinitely great, and facilitate any exertion that may be made to settle the business with them…. Our business then is to avoid a General engagement and waste the enemy away by constantly goading their sides, in a desultory way”: an astute analysis and smart strategic plan.63
Attack on Germantown and the Chew Mansion
Hamilton and the other members of Washington’s headquarters were exceptionally busy on October 3, after American fortunes turned for the better, despite Philadelphia’s loss. Howe encountered a host of vexing resupply problems in occupying Philadelphia because Washington had blocked the main British route of resupply, the Delaware River. Additionally, reinforcements had recently reached Washington’s encampment to swell the army’s ranks. But most of all, Howe in his hubris of capturing America’s capital and feeling that Washington’s Army was impotent, had allowed his army to remain divided in two places, Philadelphia and Germantown, Pennsylvania, instead of concentrating his forces in Philadelphia.
Demonstrating tactical flexibility and almost certainly based partly on Hamilton’s strategic and tactical advice about achieving another Trenton-like success, Washington switched over to the tactical offensive with a boldness that gave great credit to his generalship. Indeed, a good tactical opportunity existed, and Washington now audaciously sought to avenge his loss at Brandywine and the fall of America’s capital. Even more, if Howe could be taken by surprise at his Germantown headquarters and an unexpected victory could be secured, then his decision to capture Philadelphia might still prove to be a great mistake.
With around eight thousand Continentals, under hard-fighting Generals John Sullivan and Nathanael Greene, and another three thousand militiamen who now benefited from the invaluable supplies that Hamilton had gathered from Philadelphia, Washington planned to deliver a hard-hitting “stroke” at dawn with four columns that were to strike just northwest of Philadelphia and overwhelm Germantown, situated just north of the Schuylkill River, and about half of Howe’s Army, before going into winter quarters. Sensing a golden opportunity to suddenly reverse the war’s fortunes like the ever-aggressive Hamilton, Washington targeted Howe’s vulnerable position at Germantown with a slight advantage in numbers.
Spirits among the revolutionaries were soaring like late summer temperatures, because Washington had just announced that Burgoyne’s Army had ing home their tactical advantage by continuing to push forward to retainbeen defeated by General Gates and his top lieutenants (especially Generals Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan) in the depths of the upper Hudson Valley at Freeman’s Farm, located near Saratoga, New York, on September 19. Washington also wanted to strike to ensure that the Germantown troops were not ordered by Howe to march north to reinforce Burgoyne, who was in serious trouble in upper New York State. However, Washington developed an overly complex battle-plan of unleashing four columns in a coordinated attack—simultaneously hitting the center and flanks that called for perfect timing to catch the idle Germantown troops by surprise at sunrise on October 4.
Washington’s aggressive plan succeeded in the beginning, catching General Howe by surprise and striking hard. With fixed bayonets, the Americans surged through the thick ground fog of early morning, advancing southeast on both sides of the Germantown Road and parallel to the Schuylkill, just to the south, with discipline. A sight rarely seen and to Howe’s utter shock, the British troops of Germantown’s advanced outposts fled before the unexpected onslaught of the Americans, who swarmed onward with cheers that split the cool October air. An unnerved Howe ordered his troops to retreat before being overwhelmed by the surging American tide of confident troops. But the complexity of Washington’s battle-plan and the lack of visibility in the dense fog resulted in confusion and ineffective piecemeal assaults. Washington’s volunteer aide John Laurens, riding with Sullivan’s advancing column in the center, was struck in the shoulder by a musket ball at the assault’s onset. But the wound failed to diminish Lauren’s ardor, and he continued to lead troops into the fray. Continuing to charge down both side of the Germantown Road, the onrushing Americans, animated and elated, nearly reached the center of Germantown.
Additional prisoners were scooped up by Washington’s fast-moving men. A dramatic victory seemed all but assured until the unexpected happened. After Sullivan’s troops had already passed by and pushed toward the center of town, a relative handful of determined Britons took shelter in the formidable mansion of Benjamin Chew (appropriately a loyalist), known as Cliveden. Located on the main road, that ran southeast, to Germantown and built in the 1760s, this imposing stone mansion was shortly transformed into a formidable defensive bastion. Doors and windows were barricaded by more than a hundred British soldiers of half a dozen companies of the 40th Regiment of Foot under a determined Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Musgrave.
Washington committed the tactical mistake of making a time-consuming attempt to reduce the two and a half story mansion by assault instead of pressing home their tactical advantage by continuing to push forward to retain the momentum by pursuing the retiring foe. Meanwhile, Laurens and Hamilton played key roles in organizing desperate attempts to capture the formidable structure filled with veteran redcoats, who blazed away at the attackers.
In a daring effort to torch the Chew Mansion to force the redcoat’s surrender, Laurens was hit once again, but this time by a spent ball that struck his right shoulder. His uniform was pierced by other bullets that failed to stop the brave South Carolinian. Laurens’ heroics and leadership ability in a key battlefield situation convinced Washington to shortly change his status from volunteer to permanent aide-de-camp. Likewise mounted and in the forefront as usual, Hamilton also had a number of close calls, but escaped injury in the hard-fought battle.64
Having learned timeless lessons of history going back to ancient times, the tactically astute Hamilton instinctively knew that it was a fundamental tactical mistake to halt the successful attack in an ill-advised attempt to reduce the formidable mansion. Along with other esteemed members of Washington’s staff, Adjutant General Timothy Pickering and other officers, Hamilton immediately understood the extent of his serious tactical blunder. Therefore, they advocated for Washington to simply bypass the obstacle and leave a contingent of troops behind to deal with the Chew Mansion’s surrounded defenders who were not going anywhere, while continuing to press the attack to exploit the tactical advantage and momentum.
But the Continental Army’s usually wise artillery commander, General Henry Knox, had thought otherwise, and he had been right so often in the past. He had convinced Washington, who again demonstrated indecision in a key battlefield situation that frustrated more aggressive men like Pickering and Hamilton, that he could not afford to leave a defensive bastion in his rear. Washington had belatedly agreed with Knox (who was Hamilton’s old commander and firm supporter since the 1776 New York Campaign) ensuring a waste of precious time while on the verge of an impressive success.65
Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton’s worst fears were confirmed when British troops rallied, after having been allowed a respite. Washington was forced to retreat before noon because of the squandered tactical opportunity, while the bullet-riddled Chew Mansion stood unvanquished and at least seventy-five fallen Americans—a waste of valor and sacrifice—lay around the stone structure, which was impervious even to cannonballs. Like other staff officers, Hamilton had a number of close calls. As Tench Tilghman, commissioned lieutenant colonel since April, wrote in an October 6, 1777 letter to his father about the price paid among Hamilton’s closest associates: “two of the Generals family are wounded. Mr. [John] Lawrens [Laurens] of [South] Carolina slight and Mr. Smith of Virginia his leg broke.”66
Filled with regrets over wasting so much precious time and American lives for nothing, a frustrated Hamilton also blamed the defeat on the “hazy weather,” because the fog had early proved to be “a fatal disadvantage” to the attackers’ momentum. But the bulldog tenacity of the experienced Britons, especially at the embattled Chew Mansion, had also played a significant role in thwarting Washington’s ambitions at Germantown.67
After Washington‘s tactical plan went awry, winter quarters beckoned the Continental Army. Just as during the offensive thrust at Germantown that benefitted from supplies recently collected in the nation’s capital, Hamilton’s supply of blankets gathered immediately before Philadelphia’s fall provided a God-send at the army’s winter quarters at Valley Forge which was established on December 19, 1777, as Washington had envisioned. The crucial nature of Hamilton’s mission and his success continued to be readily apparent, paying impressive dividends to the army that received so little support from Congress and the states.
The bitter cold winter of 1777–1778 ended campaigning in the tradition of eighteenth century warfare. With the British and Hessians remaining quiet due to harsher weather, Washington now took the opportunity to finally to take necessary measures against a troublesome hidden enemy of America’s often-forgotten civil war behind the lines, the Loyalists. The threat to his stationary army at Valley Forge was only too real because so many Loyalists denied Washington supplies, especially clothing and invaluable foodstuffs. Of course, they wanted to sell to the British because of the inflated value of Continental currency. A good many Tories also served as spies, informing the British of the Continental Army’s dismal condition and other vulnerabilities. Therefore, Washington was forced to take action to “cleanse” the Morristown area of Tories, who played a role in jeopardizing the Continental Army’s survival. First, on January 25, 1778, Washington ordered those inhabitants who had sworn loyalty to the Crown to report to his Valley Forge headquarters near the Schuylkill River, that flowed just to the north, and take an American loyalty oath. Individuals who refused to do so were to be transported into the British lines, officially becoming America’s enemies in what was as much of a civil war as a revolution.
Washington was rightly concerned that his harshest directives might be used against him by his political enemies in Congress, who were just waiting for an opportunity to pounce, or by the British as effective propaganda. Therefore, Hamilton served as the author who officially sent out Washington’s harsh orders (signed by Hamilton) to military and political authorities. Issued from headquarters located just east of Valley Creek and at the end of the Valley Creek Road, these sterner directives allowed Washington to appear less vindictive to his fellow Americans. Given the green light by Washington, Hamilton ordered harsh measures to cow the Loyalists as a last-ditch solution to a festering problem. Although an idealist and romantic, Hamilton was also tough-minded and no-nonsense when necessary. Of course, these were much-needed stern qualities in wartime, especially a revolution, which allowed Hamilton to often make hard but necessary decisions, especially when the lives of the army and nation were at stake.
In his letter to the New York Committee of Correspondence in Congress, Hamilton advocated a policy to deter additional Americans from becoming active Loyalists: “An execution or two [hanging in a public display], by way of example, would strike terror, and powerfully discourage the wicked practices going on.”68 Caught in the midst of a festering civil war that grew increasingly ugly, Hamilton realized that time was of the essence to purge this strategic area of an omnipresent threat on not only the military, but also the political front. He directed New Jersey’s Presbyterian governor, William Livingston, with an air of authority which gave no hint that he was still a relatively low-ranking Continental officer only in his mid-twenties: “It is the ardent wish of His Excellency that no delay might be used in making examples of some of the most atrocious offenders.”69 Just as he was Washington’s “trouble-shooter” in all-important matters at headquarters that was located north and northwest of the army’s sprawling encampment, Hamilton now “saw the war through the general’s eyes,” and acted with swift efficiency to solve problems that seemed to offer no solution.70
Simultaneously, Hamilton also continued to advise some of America’s top politicians and offer solutions to vexing problems. For good reason, he early criticized the weaknesses of New York’s new state constitution to the very highly placed men who had created the document, and without asking for his opinion. The egalitarian-minded young man advocated for a more “representative democracy, where the right of election is well-secured and regulated, and the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities is vested in select persons, chosen really and nominally by the people, will in my opinion likely to be happy, regular and durable.”71
Hamilton saved his greater vehemence for the incompetent and impotent Continental Congress, which possessed no power over the states, yet were responsible for raising and supplying their troops, in failing to effectively manage the war effort: a guarantee that the army continued to suffer from the lack of everything except courage and spunk. In a letter to John Laurens—without exaggeration and with his trademark satirical wit—Hamilton denounced the representative body that caused so much misery to the army’s common soldiers, who faithfully fought and died for a fragmented country that had seemingly turned its back on them for selfish reasons: “three-fourths of members of Congress were mortal enemies of talent and three-fourths of the remainder had only contempt for integrity.”72
Dramatic Victory at Saratoga
Meanwhile, the war significantly changed in the way that Hamilton had predicted, with Burgoyne acting too rashly by over-committing and advancing too far south toward Albany, and that Howe would fail to advance north to meet him. Ironically, few British campaigns in this war had begun so promising, but Hamilton knew better. Located at the south end of Lake Champlain and as mentioned, Fort Ticonderoga had been captured by Burgoyne in early July 1777, after gaining possession of the heights that dominated the masonry fortress.
However, Hamilton was not discouraged by the loss of the mightiest defensive bastion in North America, and only saw this victory as opening the door to an important American success in the future. In consequence, Hamilton had sought to lift the morale of some of America’s faint-hearted political leaders who lacked resolve in the face of this new crisis. In a July 13, 1777, letter to his friend John Jay, the upbeat Hamilton wrote, “All is [now] dark beyond conjecture. But we must not be discouraged at a misfortune” even of this magnitude.73
Hamilton had little time to bask in his summer successes. In the recent Philadelphia Campaign, for instance, Hamilton had also served as Washington’s top diplomat to Congress, where he had good connections, especially the New York Committee of Correspondence. When Washington had been unsure of Howe’s opaque intentions, he had finally decided to march north from his Bucks County, Pennsylvania, headquarters on August 21, after concluding incorrectly that Howe’s true objective was to link with Burgoyne. However, a march north into New York would have left Philadelphia vulnerable. Washington had been concerned about the reaction of a nervous Congress. Therefore, he had once again relied upon Hamilton.
The young man from the West Indies had ridden south on a special mission to Congress, carrying Washington’s letter of explanation for departing the Philadelphia area. The letter and Hamilton’s salesmanship and persuasive ways had accomplished the trick. Congress had allowed Washington to do as he pleased. However, the plan to move north shortly fell apart with startling news that the British fleet was seen located off the New Jersey coast and heading south. Washington’s plan then had to be cancelled.
By this time, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton was gaining recognition by both Washington’s friends and enemies who were seeing the significant influence the young man had upon the most important revolutionary leader in the land, an unprecedented and rather remarkable development in itself. In fact, one of Pennsylvania’s Congressmen, Benjamin Rush, voiced concern that Washington was being “governed by General Greene, General Knox, and [Lieutenant] Colonel Hamilton, one of his aides, a young man of twenty-one years.”74
The ambitious plan of Lord George Germain, King George III’s American Secretary, to split the colonies (now states) in two had completely fallen apart at this time, as Hamilton had boldly predicted long before. When Howe had made his decision to turn his sights on Philadelphia instead of marching north up the Hudson to link with Burgoyne, “Gentleman Johnny” was stranded on his own amid the untamed New York wilderness. Burgoyne’s skills in polite society and having composed his popular London play The Maid of the Oaks could not stop thousands of resurgent rebels, especially New Englanders who realized that the enemy’s intent was to sever their region from the rest of the colonies. One of Washington’s wisest decisions had been to reinforce the northern army with two of the hardest-fighting officers in America, Generals Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan. Thanks to the efforts of these two fine leaders, Major General Horatio Gates, who had survived (like Washington) the Braddock fiasco in the Ohio country in July 1755, became an American hero for the victory at Saratoga, although he had been born in England. After having replaced General Schuyler in command of the army’s Northern Department, because of the political backlash for Fort Ticonderoga’s loss that was at no fault of his own, a mixture of luck and fate allowed “Granny Gates” to win a decisive victory at Saratoga. General Burgoyne surrendered nearly six thousand British, Hessians, and Loyalists in a grassy meadow located on the Hudson’s west bank on October 17, 1777, to Americans, whom he had once viewed as “our child[ren]”.75
Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton was simultaneously cheered by the joyous news of Saratoga and Laurens’ official appointment to the “family.” At long last and as mentioned, John Laurens, who had been serving as a volunteer aide on Washington’s staff since August and was Hamilton’s best friend by this time, received his official appointment to the staff on October 6, 1777. Washington’s general orders on this day specified that Laurens was “now appointed Aid de Camp [and he] is to be respected and obeyed as such.”76
Special Mission of Importance to the Northern Army
Hamilton continued to be Washington’s invaluable “trouble-shooter,” who could seemingly do the impossible, especially when the chances for success were especially slim.77 In still another solid vote of confidence by relying on the native West Indian’s seemingly limitless “political acumen,” Washington dispatched Hamilton on a special mission to Albany at the end of November not long after the battle of Germantown. Based on the recent decision made by Washington’s council of war, that additional troops were needed to bolster his thinned ranks of Washington’s Army for future operations before winter, the young man now became Washington’s personal emissary.
However, this was a “thankless [if not impossible] assignment,” because the victorious Gates was known for his arrogance and intransigence. Hamilton, the youngest but most gifted and trusted staff member, was assigned to make the attempt to somehow pry “a very considerable part” (three brigades) of Gates’ force to provide much-needed reinforcements to Washington’s Army around Philadelphia, weakened by he expiration of one-year enlistments.78
But in choosing Hamilton for this key assignment, Washington seemed to have forgotten something significant that involved both personal and political considerations: that he had given Hamilton one of his first assignments in March, which had been “to upbraid [Gates] for failing to keep track of” men joining the army to collect a nice bonus and those men would then desert to reenlist in order to secure still another lucrative bounty. In addition, Gates had replaced the New Yorker General Schuyler by artful political maneuvering and gained the support of Congress to remove the Northern Department’s commander. Ever-the-politician, Hamilton was solidly in the New York and Schuyler camp. Therefore, Hamilton and Gates were natural enemies on the political front that was as heated as any battlefield front. Under the circumstances, Hamilton’s mission to the north seemed doomed to almost certain failure. However, Washington knew that if anyone could succeed, it was his can-do chief of staff.79
With Washington’s army weak and his reputation sagging after the general’s twin setbacks at Brandywine and Germantown, the young man was directed to embark upon the lengthy journey from Washington’s headquarters near White Marsh, Pennsylvania, to Albany, New York, to meet with the celebrated victor of Saratoga. Hamilton’s assignment was also especially challenging, because Gates’ ego (already outsized to begin with long before Saratoga) had been even more inflated by his recent Saratoga success, and his desire to eventually replace Washington. Gates was now at the height of popularity across America.
Ironically, Washington had dispatched some of his finest troops to play a key role Gates’ dramatic October victory at Saratoga, and now Washington wanted them back. Preparing the “Hero of Saratoga” for the arrival of Hamilton who was authorized to act as his proxy despite having only a lieutenant colonel’s rank, Washington informed Gates on October 30: “I have, by the advice of my Genl Officers, One of my aids, to lay before you a full state of our situation, and that of the Enemy in this Quarter. He is well informed upon the subject, and will deliver my Sentiments upon the plan of Operations, that is now necessary to be pursued [and] From Colo. Hamilton you will have a clear and comprehensive view of things….”80
Gates was now America’s latest hero, which placed Washington, the old hero of Trenton and Princeton, in the shadow of this English-born general, including in the eyes of many in Congress: another paradox of the overall situation. To guarantee an even more difficult mission for Hamilton, the transplanted Briton was brazenly contemptuous toward Washington, whom he had deemed unworthy to command America’s armies. Gates was so arrogant that he had dispatched his official report announcing his Saratoga victory—the most important American success to date for opening the door to foreign intervention from France and Spain—to Congress instead of his military superior, Washington.
Therefore, an incredulous Washington had only belatedly learned of the Saratoga victory from New Englander General Israel Putnam. As if to return the insult that had stung him deeply, Washington had dispatched only a lieutenant colonel on this mission instead of a senior officer, which was normal under military protocol: A fact well known to Gates, who had once served in the British Army. Clearly, Hamilton was at a serious disadvantage for a good many reasons in part because he was now unable to communicate with Washington for new instructions. On his own, Hamilton would have to rely upon all of the tact, cleverness, and diplomatic skill that he could muster to succeed in Washington’s vital mission.
On October 30, Hamilton began his journey of almost two hundred thrity-five miles north from Washington’s headquarters to Albany. No ordinary endeavor, this was one of Hamilton’s most critical and delicate missions of supreme importance. Therefore, Washington granted an inordinate amount of latitude and flexibility. Despite the obstacles, Washington knew that Hamilton, ever the psychologist and analytical genius, at least had a chance to succeed. In a war that was as much political as military, Washington needed to secure a victory in an offensive against Howe to get back into the good graces of Congress and a fickle populace. He was hoping to accomplish against the over-confident British aristocrat what Gates had achieved against Burgoyne, because he was increasingly politically vulnerable without additional laurels. After all, Gates would never have won at Saratoga had not Washington reinforced his army, including with the highly capable General Daniel Morgan. But this fact was of no concern to General Gates.81
On the cold day of November 5, with Captain Caleb Gibbs and a small escort of Washington’s Life Guards, Hamilton finally reached Gates’ headquarters at Albany, after riding around fifty miles a day for five consecutive days. Here, the northern army was encamped in upper New York after the surrender of Burgoyne’s entire army. Before reaching Albany, he had stopped at Fishkill, New York, near the Hudson’s east bank, and requested that General Israel Putnam hurry two Continental brigades south to reinforce Washington’s Army, while also securing a promise from the seasoned New Englander that seven hundred New Jersey militiamen would follow. To assist him in his Albany mission and bestow a measure of authority to the young man, Hamilton now carried the October 30, 1777, letter (tactfully composed by him) from Washington to Gates. In part, the letter read: “I cannot but regret, that a matter of such magnitude and so interesting [decisive victory at Saratoga] in our General Operations, should have reached me” [Washington] from a source other than General Gates, which went against proper military protocol.82
However, because the situation was so delicate and complex on multiple levels, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton needed to first carefully ascertain the exact military situation in New York to determine if General Gates planned to truly utilize the troops for some good purpose or just wanted to willfully withhold his good troops from Washington for purely selfish reasons. If Gates possessed a promising strategic plan, then Hamilton would not make a forceful demand. But if he determined that Gates was selfishly holding troops for himself just to diminish Washington’s future chances for success, then Hamilton would attempt to obtain the much-needed reinforcements of three brigades with a stern demand. Hamilton knew that if he was too aggressive then the aristocratic Gates, who was sure to be irritated by a young upstart making demands, would complain loudly to a sympathetic Congress, now literally in the palm of his hand, and cause “serious” difficulties for Washington.
Under these challenging and sensitive circumstances, Washington’s orders were so generally vague that Hamilton possessed maximum flexibility to do what he determined was best depending upon the existing situation he faced. Far from Washington’s headquarters, the relatively recent immigrant who was less than half General Gates’ age was now on his own. Hamilton was determined to fulfill his crucial mission to the best of his ability, however, he would have to first precisely ascertain the overall situation with great care and then make the proper decision based on what he learned firsthand to be true rather than what Gates told him. Quite simply, he would have to determine if it would be best to demand the three brigades that Washington needed or just obtain whatever Gates decided to give him.83
At Gates’ headquarters, the showdown began between two strong-willed men not born in America and who had known the social sting of illegitimacy, young Hamilton and the gray-haired “Granny Gates.” Knowing the wisdom of not pressing too hard to secure the three brigades that Washington desired, Hamilton initially employed a delicate and diplomatic touch. Naturally, Gates first indicated that he could spare none of the three brigades desired by Washington on the premise that Howe might still advance north up the Hudson to sever New England from the rest of the United States (General Burgoyne’s old plan), or that he planned to take the offensive. Then, out of necessary, Hamilton applied a firmer touch, emphasizing that Washington needed manpower if Howe attacked.
Gates told Hamilton that he could spare only one brigade, the Massachusetts infantry regiments under Connecticut-born General John Paterson. However, Hamilton knew better than to now forcefully press for all three brigades with Washington’s full authority in such a delicate political-military situation, because of Gates’ excessive sensitivity over this issue and his many supporters in Congress. Before leaving headquarters, Hamilton employed “every argument in my power to convince him of the propriety” of sending the brigades for the overall good of the country.
To assist Washington, Hamilton was determined not to take no for an answer. After the meeting, he then went to work, launching his own personal investigation and gaining new information like an experienced detective. What he discovered raised his ire. Hamilton now realized that he had been misled (he believed deliberately lied to and tricked) by the experienced politician-general, because the young man was not aware of either the condition or strength of the northern army’s units in the faraway Northern Department.
It turned out that a conniving General Gates had taken full advantage of Hamilton’s lack of information as well as his routine expectation of proper gentlemanly behavior. From his investigation, Hamilton learned that Paterson’s brigade, which Gates offered, was in overall poor condition and was severely undermanned. With a strength of barely six hundred Massachusetts men, adding Paterson’s brigade would do Washington relatively little, if any, good. Hamilton also discovered the true situation that the veteran troops and leaders who Washington needed were not to be utilized by Gates in any offensive operation. It became clear that Gates had no plan of action, and that he just wanted to withhold them from his commander-in-chief. Angered by the cynical deception, Hamilton immediately sat down to write an indignant letter to Gates on the evening of November 5, despite his weariness from the long journey to Albany and the risks of angering the victor of Saratoga. As Hamilton wrote in controlled anger: “By inquiry, I have learned [that the brigade] you propose to send is, by far, the weakest of the three now here, and does not consist of more than 600 rank and file [or about half a full brigade] fit for duty [and] there is a militia regiment with it [whose] term of service … is so near expiring, that it would be past by the time the men could arrive” at Washington’s Army.84
Then, shocked by having been artfully duped, the twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton made a bold decision. He decided to now play his high card to get what was most needed by Washington: utilizing Washington’s name and verbal orders requesting the other two brigades that consisted of more than two thousand Continental troops in total. In a careful and skillfully crafted letter to General Gates that blended tact and proper protocol, he applied Washington’s full authority in his request. Hamilton wrote to America’s latest most popular hero: “Under these circumstances, I cannot consider it either as compatible with the good of the service or my [verbal] instructions from His Excellency General Washington, to consent, that that brigade [of Massachusetts men under Paterson] be selected from the three [and] I am under the necessity of requiring, by virtue of my orders from him, that one of the others be substituted instead of this [one]…. When I preferred your opinion to other considerations, I did not imagine you would pitch upon a brigade little more than half as large as the others; and finding this to be the case I indispensibly owe it to my duty, to desire in His Excellency’s name, that another brigade may go instead of the one intended.”85
General Gates’ immediate reaction was absolute shock, mixed with seething anger. This boyish and dapper aide-de-camp, with only a lieutenant colonel’s rank, possessed the audacity to use the full weight of Washington’s name and high rank (all the leverage that he could muster) to apply the pressure necessary to force Gates against his will to do the right thing for not only Washington but also America. To Gates’ mind, the general saw Hamilton’s bold actions as an example of far too much power (as Benjamin Rush had denounced) bestowed by Washington to a mere aide, which was highly irregular and in violation of standard protocol. But, of course, Gates had no idea that this boyish-looking officer was no ordinary aide, one who did little more than write letters and carry dispatches on horseback for Washington. Indeed, this young man was no mere clerk at headquarters, but in fact Washington’s official chief of staff in the modern sense and primary protector, who knew that Gates hoped to replace Washington. Therefore, Gates’ ambitions needed to be thwarted at all costs.
All in all, Hamilton had acted accordingly and well within his jurisdiction in a critical situation of heightened sensitivity. There was nothing out of line in regard to Hamilton’s actions, because he was only doing his job as ordered by Washington. Most of all, he was acting in Washington’s best interests and that of the army. Clearly, General Gates had underestimated the iron will and determination hidden by the appearance of this slight and slender young man. With confidence and self-assurance from so many past successes, Hamilton had maneuvered like a master chess player in a delicate, highly sensitive situation. Clearly, as on the battlefield, the “Little Lion” had roared a forceful checkmate to the revered general.
The next day on November 6, Hamilton duly reported the delicate political situation to Washington, who was eager to receive the much-needed three brigades. In dealing with Washington’s most popular subordinate, Hamilton had faced his most difficult mission to date. More importantly and as always, Hamilton was focused on protecting Washington, especially from his growing number of detractors in Congress, while enhancing his own chances for future success. In a typically thorough and analytical report, Hamilton revealed the judicious utilization of his wise judgment, while ever-mindful of the delicate symbiotic relationship between politics and popular sentiment that lately have worked to Washington’s disadvantage: “I felt the importance of strengthening you as much as possible, but on the other hand, I found insuperable inconveniences in acting diametrically opposite to the opinion of a Gentleman, whose successes [Saratoga] have raised him into the highest importance. General Gates has won the intire [sic] confidence of the Eastern States; if disposed to do it by addressing himself to the prejudices of the people he would find no difficultly to render [Washington’s] measure odious; which it might be said, with plausibility enough to be believed, was calculated to expose them to unnecessary danger, not withstanding their exertions during the campaign had given them the fullest title to repose and security. General Gates has influence and interest elsewhere; he might use it [against Washington], if he pleased, to discredit the measure there [in Congress] also.”86
In the end, the stubborn Gates caved in to the applied pressure, and informed Hamilton he would send the required two brigades of disciplined Continentals to Washington. A triumphant Hamilton showed he had “finally prevailed” in his satisfied words revealed in his letter to Washington. With his sly humor emerging out of a sense of relief because he had succeeded in defeating Gates’ defiant “impudence, his folly and his rascality” that had revealed his selfish ambition at Washington’s and America’s expense. He reported to Washington that he succeeded (another brilliant performance) in his important mission, because he had applied just the right amount of pressure and leverage, and after “having given General Gates a little more time to recollect himself.”87
Hamilton’s adroit handling of this situation obtained the best troops (two brigades of more than two thousand two hundred Continental soldiers) for Washington to increase his chances for future success, while reducing the possibilities for success of Washington’s rival. Hamilton had demonstrated considerable political savvy and prudent decision-making in a most sensitive situation (more political than military) given the ever-intriguing Gates less justifiable reason to loudly complain to his powerful Congressional supporters to cause Washington political damage and make additional enemies for the beleaguered Virginian: a disastrous political situation that could potentially prove fatal to Washington’s status and even command position.
A truly thankful Washington gained even more confidence in what Hamilton could accomplish in the future in a seemingly impossible situation, ensuring “their lifelong collaboration” in military-political matters long after the war ended. He fulfilled Washington’s wishes and most urgent need for the two brigades with the judicious finesse of a genie unleashed from a bottle, performing his magic that not only befuddled but also outsmarted the most admired general in America. However, a price had to be paid. Hamilton had now made a lifelong enemy of General Gates, who never forgot the little aide who had employed highhandedness to get his way. As could be expected from a natural politician who knew how to play the behind-the-scenes game with consummate skill, a seething Gates wrote two angry letters (only one was sent, however) to Washington that declared that he was “astonished” by Hamilton’s actions to get what he (and Washington) wanted, regardless of the England-born general’s arguments.
Of course, Hamilton was fully aware that he had made a mortal enemy, because he had outsmarted him. As Hamilton wrote in a September 6, 1780, letter in regard to Gates’ animosity, after perhaps the most egotistical generals (on either side) in America relinquished his command in the northern theater to take charge of America’s primary Southern Army in an ill-fated bid to save the day in the South: “I am his enemy personally, for unjust and unprovoked attacks upon my character….”88
After Hamilton had caught the sly general trying to pawn off an undermanned brigade to his superior in order to keep the best troops for himself and with Gates having met his match to his astonishment, the young man in a lieutenant colonel’s uniform was not aware that the incensed Gates had complained in his first draft (not sent to Washington) of the “dictatorial power” employed by “one Aid[e] de Camp sent to an Army three hundred miles distant.”89 But of course, Gates’ true target in the larger political chess game was not Hamilton but Washington, who he wanted to replace as commander-in-chief. Therefore, Hamilton’s other top priority in his delicate Albany mission was to cause Washington as few future political problems as possible, especially in regard to Congress.
Hamilton was not alone in this crucial guardian angel role. Proving to be a most effective team, the two kindred spirits, Hamilton and Laurens became even more proactive in regard to protecting Washington’s reputation against his growing number of enemies in the days ahead. They were destined to play a leading role in eventually thwarting an anti-Washington conspiracy to replace the Virginian, who now so seldom won victories as in his glory days of Trenton and Princeton. From what he had learned in Albany and the Northern Department, Hamilton gave Washington ample warnings about the full extent of Gates’ popularity, enhanced political power, and overall sinister designs toward the commander-in-chief, especially in regard to replacing him. From what he had learned about this conspiracy, Hamilton summarized: “I cannot doubt its reality in the most extensive sense.”90
During the grueling Albany mission, trouble also soon developed for Hamilton when General Israel Putnam reneged on his promise to dispatch his two brigades to Washington. Now more confident after outmaneuvering Gates who could hardly believe that he had been outsmarted by a brash officer who was young enough to have been his son, Hamilton was again forced to use his full authority granted to him by Washington to guarantee that “Old Putnam,” who had been fighting Indians before the native West Indian had been born, rushed the two brigades on to Washington.91
An outraged Hamilton relied upon the surefire tactic of righteous indignation fused with a direct appeal to Putnam’s patriotism while once again employing the full force of Washington’s authority: “I am astonished and alarmed beyond measure [that] no step of those I mentioned to you [in Washington’s name] has been taken to afford him the aid he absolutely stands in need of [and by] delaying [the reinforcements] which the cause of America is put to the utmost conceivable hazard [and] I tremble at the consequences of the delay.”92
Out of urgent necessity and having lost all patience with self-serving older generals who refused to take him seriously, Hamilton came down hard on the stubborn Putnam, who detested the aide’s demands as much as Gates. Just as General Gates had learned the hard way, so General Putnam had thoroughly underestimated the self-assured officer, and he was about to learn a hard lesson. Clearly, Hamilton was determined to allow no one to thwart his efforts to strengthen Washington’s hand in this game against rivals, and this meant that the commander-in-chief needed as many troops as possible to increase his changes for winning victory to gain greater support in Congress and enhance his overall image. In Hamilton’s threatening words that got right to the point in no uncertain terms: “How [your recent] noncompliance can be answered to General Washington you can best determine.”93
But, as in dealing with the hardheaded Gates, Hamilton saved the best for last by directly ordering Putnam to immediately hurry his two Continental brigades to Washington without delay. Then, continuing to adroitly outmaneuver the baffled “Old Put” with the same finesse as in skillfully outmatching General Gates, Hamilton had proven that he possessed an uncanny ability to think ahead of his increasingly indignant opponents of a much higher rank in a fast-paced political game. Knowing how these old generals, especially Gates, maneuvered skillfully behind the scenes to damage reputations and careers in order to place themselves in the most positive light to gain the advantage, he rushed off a letter to Washington to warn him of the exact situation, before the inevitable angry letters from Gates and Putnam grossly distorted the situation. To Washington, Hamilton rightly complained that Putnam had “deranged” the situation and ignored orders “in [Washington’s] name” on his shaky premise that he planned to attack New York City and needed the extra manpower. Correctly reading through this man’s cynical thinking and his designs, Hamilton emphasized that this so-called plan of the old French and Indian War hero was nothing more than a self-serving excuse.94
However, the excessive stress in having to play an endless political game and in having to so forcefully deal with hardheaded French and Indian War–era veterans for Washington’s maximum benefit came at a personal price. The overburdened and increasingly weary Hamilton now suffered in health, and most likely in spirit as well. He was unable to make it back to Washington’s headquarters. His remaining republican idealism about the nobility and righteousness of brothers in arms battling for America’s sacred cause was shaken to the core.
But fortunately for Washington, Hamilton had repeatedly demonstrated that he could also be equally Machiavellian, if forced by necessity, in a complex situation that required boldness on behalf of Washington and America. However, he had been too successful. Consequently, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton feared that he had exceeded his authority in playing hardball with two senior generals: Another fact that caused anxiety that almost certainly affected his health. Therefore, Hamilton was racked with a high fever, “violent rheumatic pains throughout my body,” and overall “very unwell,” as he informed Washington on November 11 from New Windsor, Ulster County, New York. Here, on the west bank of the Hudson River and located north of West Point, Hamilton’s condition worsened at New Windsor.
Nevertheless, he remained determined to fulfill his mission at any cost, because Washington was in dire need of troops. Emerging from his sickbed and despite his weakened state, he gamely rode the twenty miles south and down the Hudson to Peekskill, on the Hudson’s east bank, to hurry Putnam’s brigades south to reinforce Washington, passing by West Point on the journey. Hamilton’s obsession—orders were orders—to complete his mission resulted in a relapse in late November. He had grown up in the Caribbean, and harsh winter weather was still relatively new to him. Hamilton learned about the risks of overexertion and pushing himself too hard in wintertime. Indeed, he nearly succumbed to an untimely death from this serious bout with rheumatic fever, and Washington almost lost his chief of staff.
Hamilton was bedridden at a private house of a patriotic Irishman named Dennis Kennedy at Peekskill for almost a week during the most serious illness in his life. By Hamilton’s side as his guardian and protector, Rhode Island-born Captain Caleb Gibbs, who was from the fishing port of Marblehead, Massachusetts. The captain wrote to Governor George Clinton, of New York and the son of Irish immigrants, that the combined effect of the high fever and chills might well result in Hamilton’s death, which almost became a grim reality for the most promising officer on Washington’s staff before the end of November. As a concerned John Laurens penned to his father Henry in a December 3, 1777, letter, “Col. Hamilton, who was sent to the northern army to explain the necessity for reinforcements from there, lies dangerously ill on the road.”95
Indeed, even the gloomy physicians at Peekskill believed that Hamilton was about to die. He lay in bed under close supervision for weeks, including from the faithful Captain Gibbs, who provided good care and fresh food to combat the illness and restore his health. Against the odds, Hamilton slowly began to recover. But it had been a very close call. Clearly, losing Hamilton would have come as a severe blow to Washington, and could have ended the highly effective lifelong political and military team.96
An often-overlooked factor had played a role in Hamilton’s almost miraculous recovery that lifted his spirits at the right time, while he was overly concerned that he had abused the authority given to him by Washington. He had gotten his way (and Washington’s of course) at the expense of the ambitions of Generals Gates and Putnam. Therefore, with great relief, Hamilton read the newly arrived letter from Washington, who rarely bestowed glowing compliments and such a complete vote of confidence, about his recent mission with supreme satisfaction: “I approve entirely all the steps you have taken and have only to wish that the exertions of those [Generals Gates and Putnam] you have had to deal with had kept pace with your zeal and good intentions.”97
Meanwhile, General Gates and Putnam eagerly awaited news that their upstart irritant, who had caused them embarrassment and humiliation in equal dosages, would succumb to his illness and trouble them no more in the future. When Hamilton finally began to recover from the illness, there was absolutely no joy in Gates’ and Putnam’s headquarters. With a touch of sarcasm and almost seemingly to hint that a duel of honor might well be in order because of Hamilton’s aggressive actions on Washington’s behalf, Colonel Hugh Hughes presented the bad news to his friend Gates on December 5, 1777, that Hamilton, “who has been very ill … at Peekskill, is out of danger, unless it be from his own sweet temper.”98
Colonel Hughes’s words indicated that Hamilton had almost certainly lost his temper in the face of either Gates or Putnam, or both. But this expressed anger more applied to Putnam than Gates, because the New Englander could inflict far less political damage to Washington than the popular Gates. Clearly, Hamilton’s sense of righteous indignation had risen to the fore, when dealing with not only Gates but also with General Putnam, who had been “tongue-lashed” by the bright, fast-talking lieutenant colonel. Hamilton’s mastery of language and his argumentative skills had proved too much for “Old Put.”99
But in truth, the greatest danger had come not from Generals Gates or Putnam, but in fact from Hamilton himself. As mentioned, Hamilton, still weak and sickly, had exerted himself after having learned that Putnam’s two Continental brigades on the move to Washington’s Army were near mutiny because of the lack of pay as promised. To quell the disturbance that threatened to deprive Washington of these much-needed troops after so much effort, Hamilton had “literally leaped from his sickbed” to solve this new crisis that had so suddenly emerged at Peekskill. He had convinced New York’s Governor Clinton, who lived in New Windsor, to release funds to immediately pay the troops, who then continued onward to join Washington.100
The entire array of impressive accomplishments of Hamilton’s mission to Albany included even a significant step forward in his personal life. In paying a courtesy call during a lull period in his intense discussions and communications with Gates, he had met his future wife, Elizabeth Schuyler, the attractive young second daughter of General Philip Schuyler. Here, he had dined with the former commander of the Northern Department and his family at their exquisite mansion. Hamilton had been impressed by the mansion and the wealth, but far more impressed by the general’s pretty daughter.101
Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton hoped to return to Washington’s “family” at Valley Forge by Christmas. But it was not to be. Worn down from his grueling mission, Hamilton literally collapsed on his journey south from exhaustion near Morristown, New Jersey, before reaching headquarters to the southwest. He was in such bad shape that he was forced to hire a coach to take him some sixty-five miles to the northeast and all the way back to Peekskill.
After recovering some of his strength, Hamilton finally returned to headquarters at Valley Forge, where the army had established winter quarters since December 19, 1777. Hamilton arrived with his health only recently improved, but his spirits returned upon returning to the “family.” As could be expected, Hamilton’s lengthy illness was troubling to Washington, who rightly worried that he would never see his most indispensable man again. Now appreciating Hamilton more than ever before after his long absence in which the heavy workload and unresolved problems had piled-up at headquarters, Washington realized that whenever “a crisis had occurred [in the past he] could always rely on the diligent Hamilton … to help him” in even the most impossible situation.102
Indeed, Hamilton had helped Washington far more than even he imagined. A troublemaking Irish-born general named Thomas Conway openly voiced strong anti-Washington opinions to Gates, who had an ally in the festering anti-Washington coalition. Conway’s secret anti-Washington letter to General Gates had been revealed that a united front in the army existed against Washington. In a letter to Gates, of which a copy had come into his possession in November 1777 while Hamilton was on his Albany mission, Washington was denounced by Conway, a newly appointed brigadier, as a “weak general [with] bad councilors,” meaning: Hamilton most of all. Hamilton early understood the true depths of the so-called Gates-Conway conspiracy, and correctly saw it as Washington’s most serious threat.
He, therefore, denounced Conway as the most “villainous calumniator or incendiary” in the land. With the copy of Conway’s letter to Gates in hand, Washington wrote to Gates and requested an immediate explanation. Gates attempted to turn the tables on his own traitorous sentiments by falsely declaring that a “spy” and a “thief” (as he wrote to Washington in a December 8 letter) had been in headquarters and had copied the letter from his files, implicating Hamilton during his recent visit. But in truth, Hamilton was then recuperating from his illness in Peekskill.
Still angry at Hamilton for prying so many precious troops from him and getting the best of him by artful maneuvering, General Gates hoped to tarnish Hamilton’s reputation. But even this devious strategy backfired, because Gates lost more credibility, especially among conservative Congressmen, like New Yorkers and Hamilton’s friends Robert R. Livingston and John Jay, who stood solidly behind Washington. In no small part because Hamilton (along with John Laurens) served as his primary protector, especially against the covert activities of the so-called Conway Cabal in the future, Washington remained the army’s commander-in-chief to the war’s end.103
As the Albany mission demonstrated, Hamilton’s Machiavellian qualities and wise decision-making were appreciated by Washington, because this irrepressible young man obtained for him two good combat brigades from Gates’s army. This was a crucial addition of manpower, because Washington needed to win another victory to keep rivals at bay. Not only in the role as chief of staff after he returned to headquarters, Hamilton also continued to serve as “Washington’s most trusted advisor,” political councilor, and “trouble-shooter” in the most crucial matters, both military and political. Revealing the depth of his contributions, he even “was already spouting civics lessons to state governors” with hard-hitting political arguments.104
Washington learned that not only were Hamilton’s strategic views sound, but also his judgments and insights about high-ranking subordinates. This was especially the case of one of America’s most revered heroes of the French and Indian War and the revolution’s early days, General Putnam, who had commanded the New York Highlands north of New York City ineffectively. “Old Put” was well past his prime, while a new generation of dynamic younger officers, such as Knox and Greene, had risen to the fore. The October 6, 1777, loss of Forts Montgomery and Clinton on the Hudson exposed Putnam’s considerable strategic and tactical failings in this important theater. After the latest episode with Putnam’s intransigence over sending the two Continental brigades of reinforcements to Washington, Hamilton (who unknowingly echoed the sentiments of Congress in denouncing Putnam) implored Washington to relieve “Old Put” for the overall good of America’s overall war effort. By late March 1778, Putnam was finally relieved of command.105
Doing what he felt was necessary, Hamilton had played a role in convincing Washington that the best policy was to remove the incompetent Putnam. Since his service as a young aide from New Jersey, Major Aaron Burr loved Putnam like a father. He had long referred to him as “my good old General.” Hamilton’s role in the New England general’s fall from grace engendered a life-long hatred from the young New England firebrand. Hamilton was destined to pay a high price for Burr’s bitter hatred that never diminished.106
But General Gates was only one of many enemies who had set their sights on this gifted “fair-haired boy,” because of his considerable clout and his aggressive actions that got so much accomplished for Washington. In this vital role, Hamilton had become Washington’s most effective pen, mouthpiece, and protector, which ensured a sharp backlash, including that he exerted too much influence upon the middle-aged general and former planter. Jealousy also ran high among highly placed Americans because Washington had bestowed this precocious young man with an unprecedented amount of his authority.
Therefore, Hamilton emerged as the number one most irresistible target of Gates’ circle of cronies and other military and political leaders, including members of Congress such as John and Samuel Adams. Indeed, “the Little Lion was fair game for professional lion-killers in and out of the army; and they had seldom drawn a bead upon a more tempting and—thanks to Hamilton’s practice of speaking his mind freely—a more vulnerable target.”107
But making a good many enemies was the inevitable price that Hamilton paid for performing so skillfully in getting quick results as Washington’s trouble-shooter and chief protector; the long list of enemies he accumulated was a direct testament to his amazing success. Therefore, Hamilton fairly basked in his “success in flushing out” those self-serving generals, who sought to replace the commander-in-chief for reasons that had little to do with America’s well-being. But even more remarkably, Hamilton’s ever-increasing list of achievements and successes never went to his head. He was still easy to work with at headquarters, while continuing to serve Washington and his country at the expense of his personal ambitions and desires for the overall good of the country.108
Winter at Valley Forge
As mentioned, Washington had established winter quarters on December 19, 1777, while Hamilton had been absent. The commander-in-chief had decided not to undertake any attempt to recapture Philadelphia, although he remained within striking distance. He knew that Howe’s forces were too strong and lack initiative. Therefore, the army’s winter position along the Schuylkill was far enough from Philadelphia to be safe while gathering additional strength for next year’s spring campaign, and close enough to monitor any future British movements. However, Washington’s prudence in deciding to leave Philadelphia free from attack drew a new round of criticism from an increasingly vocal anti-Washington bloc, especially in Congress, and even from former supporters. After the most patriotic presses that had once produced pro-Washington periodicals had been driven out of the city by the British occupation, the Philadelphia press naturally became more critical of Washington, who remained inactive just to the northwest at Valley Forge.
As could be expected, General Gates continued to be increasingly seen as Washington’s most worthy replacement, including by Congressional members. In addition, a mounting tide of criticism was directed toward Hamilton. He was now charged with having too much influence over Washington’s decision-making and judgment: ironically, this was actually a great advantage for the commander-in-chief rather than a liability. Of course, no one knew of the full extent of Hamilton’s broad range of talents and contributions warranting this disproportionate influence like Washington. In an indirect compliment that he delighted knowing about, Hamilton continued to serve as the “favorite culprit” and the most convenient target of a growing number of Washington critics, who sought their revenge on the increasingly detested native West Indian.109
The winter encampment at Valley Forge, located along the south bank of the Schuylkill River, was dominated by the toxic mixture of political intrigue, unrest, and gloom. Meanwhile, Philadelphia and New York City—America’s two largest cities—continued to be occupied by the British, who enjoyed the comforts of a relatively luxurious winter quarters. Valley Forge, located around twenty miles just northwest of Philadelphia, was a bleak exile by stark comparison. Hamilton continued to perform his duty at the stone house owned by Isaac Potts, the thrifty forge co-owner, who lived in Philadelphia. Potts’ summer house served as the home of Washington’s military “family.” At the intersection of Valley Creek, that ran north, and the east-west flowing Schuylkill River, just to the north, Washington’s headquarters was located at the northwestern corner of the Valley Forge encampment. Potts owned the forge that provided war materiel to the Continental Army with William Dewees, a patriot Quaker.
But despite its bleakness and shortages that cost precious lives, Valley Forge was a good strategic position, providing Washington with distinct advantages. Here, Washington could still threaten Howe and his stationary position in Philadelphia, if necessary. Because of the overall dire situation and because his greatest successes—Trenton and Princeton—were in the distant past, Washington’s reputation remained under steady attack from Congress, the army, and the press, even before General Gates’ October 1777 victory at Saratoga.
After all, America’s capital had been lost under Washington’s watch, along with his ineffective efforts to stop the advance of the invaders at Brandywine Creek. A growing number of New Englanders in high places wanted Washington replaced. Sectional divisions continued to rise to the fore, with Congress as divided as the army. Serving on the staff as Washington’s adjutant general, Colonel Timothy Pickering, a pious New Englander who was an Old Testament warrior, learned of the depth of anti–New England sentiment: just as New Englanders possessed their own regional prejudices. Washington realized that he possessed very few generals, especially Gates and Lee, who he could totally trust. Therefore, he continued to place even more of his faith in his chief of staff in the days ahead, a trust that was well-placed and returned in full.
Meanwhile, spirits steadily sank among America’s revolutionaries while more good men died of disease and the British Army continued to occupy warm quarters in the houses of Philadelphia. Washington’s men endured the harsh winter without adequate quarters or clothing, especially shoes. The Valley Forge area had been long ago stripped of provisions and supplies. Nearby American farmers continued to readily sell their produce to the British, who paid in hard cash instead of virtually worthless Continental notes. Under the Articles of Confederation (the first United States Constitution) that had been created in mid-November 1777, states were responsible for supplying clothing as well as food to their troops. But the states were unable to transport supplies to Valley Forge. Washington’s commissary and supply system was inefficient and corrupt, and the whole logistical structure began to break down in winter’s depths. Angered over the corruption, incompetence of the army’s commissary department, and selfishness that signed the death warrants of a good many starving and diseased soldiers, Hamilton wrote letters to Congress to secure supplies and provisions. But this was not enough.
Meanwhile, Howe’s well-supplied occupiers of Philadelphia mocked Washington’s ill-clad rabble, suffering only a short distance away. Morale and discipline of these amateurs in revolution had plummeted to new lows. Hamilton even feared that the army might simply dissolve or never reach the combat capabilities to launch another campaign to defend America. Soldiers lacked everything but stoicism, and Hamilton greatly admired their “unparalleled … degree of patience” under such severe adversity. And when new uniforms and shoes were finally issued to Valley Forge, they were too small in size. In December 1777 alone, and the situation worsening into the New Year, nearly three thousand of Washington’s nine thousand men were unfit for duty because they lacked clothing and shoes. However, the army’s condition would have been far worse at Valley Forge had Hamilton not secured supplies of blankets and clothing for the army before Philadelphia fell, because the “distressed situation of the army for want of blankets and many necessary articles of clothing is truly deplorable,” lamented Washington.110
By January 1778, meanwhile, Philadelphia newspapers, Congressional members, and revolutionary leaders continued to unleash barrages of criticism about Washington’s shortcomings, both real and exaggerated. Generals Gates and Conway of the so-called Conway Cabal, or “this junto,” in Washington’s words, hoped to undermine his position as the army’s commander to force his resignation in disgrace. Rumors were afloat about Washington’s possible resignation under the avalanche of criticism, especially after his recent setbacks.
Not long after Hamilton returned to headquarters at the Isaac Potts’ House at Valley Forge on January 20, 1778, following his exhaustive Albany mission, Washington finally took action by launching his own defense, after his chief of staff had appraised him of the full extent of the threat: A mini-mutiny of sorts by senior commanders. At Hamilton’s urgent urging because of this escalating political maneuvering behind the scenes and the overall dire situation facing the army from internal weaknesses, Washington wisely took the initiative. Along with Hamilton, he knew that the best defense was taking the offensive, and this called for a proactive plan that basically usurped the mission of the Board of War of reorganizing an ill-supplied and ineffective army.
Fortunately, the army’s beleaguered commander now relied upon Hamilton. Hamilton especially excelled at this kind of problem solving on an extensive scale. Washington now needed to forcefully answer his growing number of critics with a well-conceived strategic plan for the army’s reform and reorganization to enhance overall quality and effectiveness by laying a sturdy foundation for future success in the years ahead. Clearly, in political terms, this was also a masterful means of increasing greater confidence in Washington among the increasingly skeptical Congressional members who had lost faith in the Virginian.111 Here, in a sixteen-square-foot room with only one stone fireplace in the summerhouse of Isaac Potts, “Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the most talented writer on the general’s staff, sharpened his quills, filled his inkpot, and went to work on a document that was aimed not only at rescuing the army but also at defeating the men who were trying to destroy George Washington.”112
Washington’s reputation as a far-sighted commander-in-chief began to be resurrected when the massive document of more than sixteen thousand words, which primarily espoused the many ideas of Hamilton (mostly in his neat handwriting), was prepared for presentation to five members of the Congressional committee on January 29, 1778: essentially a blueprint of guidance that detailed the necessary steps required by the Congress to reorganize the Continental Army that was in need of practically everything, especially a thorough reorganization. Although Hamilton was not the sole author, he was the primary architect and contributor. At Washington’s request, general officers (such as the highly capable Major General Greene) made contributions for the remodeling the army. Hamilton incorporated these sound ideas, but primarily relied upon his own many already well-thought-out views into this lengthy comprehensive analysis.
Hamilton’s monumental treatise provided the much-needed remedies to improve the army’s capabilities and chances of surviving a lengthy war of attrition. With clarity and insight, Hamilton crafted the document for reforming the army, while “devising reforms systematically.” Hamilton reworked and transformed the final document with his stylish “serviceable prose.”113 In the end, Hamilton created “nothing less than America’s first great state paper” in the history of the United States.114 As could be expected, a thankful Washington was highly impressed by the breadth of Hamilton’s finished document and satisfied with the innovative ideas and solutions that the masterpiece contained. A delighted Washington, therefore, “accepted Hamilton’s reformed regulations [for the army] and turned them over to an investigating committee of the Continental Congress” at Valley Forge.115
To improve the rapidly worsening situation facing his army, meanwhile, an increasingly frustrated Washington was forced to take more drastic action beyond just listing remedies for Congress to act upon. The amount of supplies at the winter encampment had dwindled to new lows. Hamilton knew that political infighting, or bitter “faction” (denounced by Hamilton as “the monster”), was a primary source of Congress’ inefficiency and for America’s greatest political problems in general, because so many of its members lacked proper public spirit, and were more focused on personal gain. The absence of basic necessities at Valley Forge led to a spike in not only in desertions, but also hundreds of deaths. In February, Hamilton lamented how the “desertions have been immense,” more than he had ever seen before. With so many people involved in profiteering, Washington rightly suspected that theft or black market activities had significantly reduced the volume of the already too-small amount of supplies that managed to eventually reach Valley Forge.
Around mid-February 1778, Washington unleashed his most competent bloodhound and sleuth to sniff out the sources of the troubles. He ordered Hamilton, meticulous and detail-oriented, to conduct an in-depth investigation of the entire winter encampment to ascertain the sources of the logistical and supply problems, especially why newly arrived provisions were not reaching the men in timely fashion or not at all. Hoping to solve the ration shortage crisis, Washington “convened extra meetings of his staff, and kept his aides [including Hamilton] working until late at night as he fired off pleas for food.”116
On February 13, at the Potts house, Hamilton allowed a flood of his bold and novel ideas to flow smoothly in his problem solving initiatives, while ever-mindful that his repeated requests for supplies were either being ignored or bogged down by tangles of bureaucratic red tape. Hamilton utilized the strategy of adding weight in his condemnation of Congress by employing the aid of New York’s Governor George Clinton. In another hard-hitting letter through Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton appealed to Governor Clinton on “a matter [which now] requires the attention of every person of sense and influence [because of the] degeneracy of representation in the great council of America.”117
An indignant Hamilton again utilized his masterful pen to address the crisis that was leading to the army’s gradual and systematic destruction, beginning at Valley Forge: “It is a melancholy truth Sir, and the effects of which we dayly [sic] see and feel, that there is not so much wisdom in a certain body, as there ought to be, and as the success of our affairs absolutely demands. Many members of it are no doubt men in every respect, fit for the trust, but his cannot be said of it as a body. Folly, caprice a want of foresight, comprehension and dignity, characterize the general tenor of their actions…. Their conduct, with respect to the army especially, is feeble, indecisive, and improvident.”118
As usual, Hamilton was especially infuriated at these harmful politicians who were motivated far more by self-interest than national interest, doing immeasurable damage to the war effort and nation at large: the antithesis of the duty-minded, stoic “Little Lion” who sacrificed all for the cause and repeatedly risking his life on the battlefield. As he continued in his attack on Congress’ seemingly endless failings in his February 13 letter, despite having greeted members of a Congressional delegation who had visited Valley Forge less than a month before in response to the formal recommendations for the army’s reorganization: “Their conduct with respect to the army especially is feeble indecisive and improvident—insomuch, that we are reduced to a more terrible situation than you can conceive” at this time.119
Blaming state politicians who proved irresponsible in supplying the troops, Hamilton ascertained the fundamental problem of states’ rights versus the national priorities: the central weakness of the hastily constructed republican system that was partly leading to America’s failed war effort. He saw early on the urgent need of a stronger government to provide for the army and wage war. The states “should have nothing to do with” the army, because this was rightly the role of a central government. The situation was so bad that he was forced to beg Governor Clinton on February 16: “you can perhaps do something towards” the army’s relief, because “any assistance, however, trifling in itself, will be of great moment at so critical a juncture.” With a mixture of sound logic and sarcasm that presented a broad strategic-political perspective, Hamilton also warned the newly elected governor of New York about the possible dire international consequences: “Realize to yourself the consequences of having a Congress despised at home and aboard. How can the common force be exerted, if the power of collecting it be put in weak foolish and unsteady hands? How can we hope for success in our European negociations [sic], if the nations of Europe have no confidence in the wisdom and vigor, of the great Continental Government?”120
Martha Washington arrived at the Valley Forge encampment on February 8, after the one-hundred-thirty-mile trip from Mount Vernon. Spirits lifted among the general’s military “family” at headquarters when Martha threw a party for her husband on Sunday February 22, his forty-sixth birthday. Washington’s headquarters were especially light-hearted on this evening. As could be expected, “Hamilton was the very life of every party.”121
A distinguished French philosopher and linguist who had recently arrived in America and Valley Forge, Pierre Etienne Du Ponceau, who now served as the secretary to Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, was invited to dine with Washington and his staff. He described his first impressions of Washington’s headquarters, when, “We were in a manner domesticated in the family [and] General Washington had three aids: Tench Tilghman, John Laurens, and Alexander Hamilton; Robert Hanson Harrison was his secretary. I soon formed a friendship with Laurens, and Hamilton.”122
The respected Frenchman, educated at a Benedictine school in France, was impressed by examples of sterling character: “In the midst of our distress … Mrs. Washington had the courage to follow her husband in that dreary abode” of Valley Forge.123 Du Ponceau also described how the Spartan wives of Washington’s principal officers, such as Generals Greene and Lord Stirling, “often met at each other’s quarters and sometimes at General Washington’s [headquarters] where the evening was spent in conversation over a dish of tea or coffee [but] no dancing, card-playing or amusements of any kind except singing.”124
At his Valley Forge headquarters, Washington continued to dictate a record number of letters and other correspondence. It has been estimated that Harrison and Tilghman wrote more than half of the paperwork generated during an especially hectic six-month period. If so, then Hamilton’s almost certainly penned the remainder, or nearly half. But what was most significant about this massive production flowing from Washington’s headquarters was the fact that Hamilton accomplished the important work on the most crucial issues on national importance.125
As part of the ambitious plan to reform the Continental Army, Washington benefitted from the expertise of a newly arrived foreign volunteer soldier from Prussia. After landing in New England on December 1, 1777, forty-eight-year-old Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben made his appearance at Valley Forge. Despite the false attachment of the aristocratic “von” (he had gained the title of Freiherr—roughly baron status—while serving as a chamberlain in a minor German court) that denoted the Prussian upper class elite, this seasoned Prussian officer had been schooled in European ways of training and was a faithful follower of Frederick the Great. Like Hamilton before him, he arrived at Washington’s headquarters at exactly the right time. Von Steuben saw a disorganized army in an appalling condition. Experience was badly needed to bring improvements to this amateur army, and as a veteran officer with European militaries, including the legendary Prussian Army of Frederick the Great, von Steuben was that man. Ironically, unlike Hamilton, Washington was not initially convinced about von Steuben’s worth in part because the Prussian had been endorsed by General Gates, which was sufficient to arouse suspicions. But Hamilton, like Laurens, was enthusiastic about the Prussian, and he worked his magic on Washington, who became a believer.
Incredibly, Washington’s Army even lacked a manual of written regulations possessed by every army in Europe. After Washington assigned Hamilton and Laurens as the Prussian’s aides and interpreters because he spoke very little and only poor English except for an occasional “Goddamn” when angered, Hamilton learned from von Steuben about the professional workings of the proficient Prussian staff, where a chief of staff had long advised the monarch in days past. In the Prussian military, von Steuben had been instructed in staff officer duties. With Hamilton’s assistance, von Steuben was about to apply to Washington’s Army what was now most desperately needed: a professional system of training, tactics, and discipline, following the professional Prussian model.126
To ensure a smooth acclimation for von Steuben, Hamilton took the Prussian under his wing, including loaning him money when needed. “With Hamilton acting as interpreter, the Baron made an excellent impression from the first,” especially to Washington.127 Because French was von Steuben’s second language after German, Hamilton made sure that his exact words and thoughts were committed to paper. The Prussian “dictated [his] dispositions in the night.” Von Steuben wrote out his suggestions for his drill manual in confusing mix of Germanic-French. Then, this rough draft was rewritten in proper French from Hamilton’s neat hand and concise understanding of French. Besides the role of translator, Hamilton also served as Von Steuben’s editor. Laurens, the only other member of Washington’s staff fluent in French besides the native West Indian, assisted Hamilton in this time-consuming effort.
Working together as an excellent team and beyond what could have been achieved by Washington’s older staff officers, Hamilton and Laurens completed translating the Prussian’s ideas and suggestions into English. They then put Steuben’s words into the understandable language of the common soldiers, including many recent immigrants, especially Irish soldiers. Because no printing press was located at Valley Forge, von Steuben’s instructions, as clearly written out by Hamilton’s hand, were circulated throughout the army. What these young young men of Washington’s staff had created was the first manual and set of regulations ever used by the American Army, which was eventually published as the Regulations for Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States.
By March and with the first hints of spring in the air among the rolling hills of Valley Forge above the Schuylkill, thousands of Americans began to drill like Frederick the Great’s Prussian soldiers with newly imported Charleville muskets from France to the precise instructions of the “Steuben-Hamilton manual.” Finding himself in the middle of everything as usual, Hamilton was one of the first Continental officers to personally drill the troops, divided in groups of one hundred men, and succeeding groups by the dictates of the new manual. All in all, this much-needed army manual was very much of Hamilton’s creation. Appreciating how much the Prussian was assisting the army, Hamilton felt considerable affection for the Prussian, perhaps partly because he was also a recent immigrant. Hamilton had even taught von Steuben, at his request because his German and French invectives were not sufficient, a number of English curse words to shower upon the recruits to get them to drill properly. Von Steuben was on his way to gaining a major general’s rank early May 1778. Hamilton wrote candidly how the “Baron is a gentleman for whom I have a particular esteem.”128
With his tasks never-ending at the busy headquarters, Hamilton received another assignment from Washington in March 1778 that was destined to eventually come back to haunt him. He was sent to present Captain Henry “Light Horse” Lee, age twenty-two, with an offer to join the “family.” But “Harry” declined what almost any officer would gladly accept. The gifted cavalry commander from the Northern Neck of Virginia, nestled between the Potomac River (on the north) and the Rappahannock River (on the south), chose to remain with his command and his beloved fighting men, which was a more important priority to him than rising higher in rank, status, and prestige. Clearly, like Hamilton, Lee was a true republican soldier who sacrificed his all for his country.129